...I Don't Like Mondays

"...and the silicon chip inside her head gets switched to overload."

This line, a lyric from The Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like
Mondays" which provided a bit of the soundtrack of my childhood,
reverberates in my mind and like that bad jingle which I cannot
forget, lures me over and over again to reflect upon the story within.
I loved that song because it gave voice to that performance angst
which is the school-child's lot. I'm sure I don't have to tell you
the story which this song is based upon which is that a young girl
hosed down her schoolchums early one Monday morning as they
went to school. When asked why she did this heinous act, she
replied, "I don't like Mondays." It was infamous.



Now, years later, as Bob Geldorf spends his middle-age years
basking in the glow of his well-deserved knighthood. "Sir Bob"
must have to ask himself if that song did more than comment
upon this strange and painfully poignant world. Did the boys
who jumped up on the desks in the library and cried upon each
other's shoulders at Columbine H.S. before going to their own
apocalypse have that song in their hearts? Does the zeitgeist
of our times call for a direct approach the way the Gordian
Knot was approached by Alexander? Is the violent voice of
our age overshadowing "the angels of our better nature"?

I wonder. I worry. I turn on my iPod and listen again.