10 Songs That Don't Mean What You Think

8. I Don't Like Mondays (The Boomtown Rats)

What You Think It Means: Here's good ol' Bob Geldof poetically describing how undoubtedly crap it is to haul oneself out of bed on a cold Monday morning and trod miserably off to school or work. Who likes Mondays? Sado-masochists, that's who. This is The Boomtown Rats' running commentary on how dreary the start of the week is.

What It's Actually About: Except it's not.

The song is actually about a teenager called Brenda Ann Spencer who went on a shooting spree in a San Diego high school towards the end of the 70s. That 1979 incident is the direct inspiration for Geldof's words, and the title comes from Spencer's cold reasoning for causing so much misery. "I don't like Mondays", she said. "This livens up the day".

Chillingly, the song was only released around 10 months after Spencer's rampage the prior January. Bob and Boomtown boys were seemingly keen to capitalise on media hysteria and package the San Diego shooting up as a pop sensation. Lyrics like, "I want to shoot the whole day down" kinda' give the game away.

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Lifelong wrestling, video game, music and sports obsessive who has been writing about his passions since childhood. Jamie started writing for WhatCulture in 2013, and has contributed thousands of articles and YouTube videos since then. He cut his teeth penning published pieces for top UK and European wrestling read Fighting Spirit Magazine (FSM), and also has extensive experience working within the wrestling biz as a manager and commentator for promotions like ICW on WWE Network and WCPW/Defiant since 2010. Further, Jamie also hosted the old Ministry Of Slam podcast, and has interviewed everyone from Steve Austin and Shawn Michaels to Bret Hart and Trish Stratus.