I Don't Like Mondays

"I Don't Like Mondays" The Boomtown Rats is a seminal New Wave classic from 1979. What many pop music fans had forgotten (or never knew) that the song has it's origins in a tragedy that became a sort of precursor to the school shootings that occurred during the late '90s that led to the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 to the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings of late last year.

On January 29, 1979 (34 years ago today), Brenda Ann Spencer, a troubled 16 year old girl opened fire from the window of her house in San Diego to the playground of Cleveland Elementary School, which was across the street, killing the principal and a custodian and injuring eight students and a police officer. When asked why she opened fire, she flippantly remarked, among other things, "I don't like Mondays", which in spite of the context in which it was used became a sort of catch-phrase in the early '80s, appearing on buttons and t-shirts.

Her cold blooded lack of remorse for her crime at the time was enough to have her tried as an adult and sentenced 25 years to life for the killings. She had been denied parole four times. Her last parole hearing was in August of 2009 and she will not be eligible for parole again until 2019.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenda_Ann_Spencer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Don%27t_Like_Mondays