Monday/ a black taxi and the Boomtown Rats

My colleague and I  took a ‘black’ taxi to work yesterday.   Black does not mean the color black, of course : ) .. it means the taxi is not from an official taxi company – it’s a private person moonlighting as a taxi driver.    As we paid him and got out, he signaled ‘call me’ with thumb and index finger to his ear, and gave me his business card.    I recognize the 王 character (for his surname Wáng) on the front of the card but not much else.    The back has English on as well.

Then today on the bus back to Dameisha one of the team members played I Don’t Like Mondays from The Boomtown Rats for us.   The Boomtown Rats are Irish, and even though I have known and liked the song for a long time,  I only found out today (!) on Wikipedia that its dark references are related to shooting incident in a school in California.   It was more or less banned from the airwaves in the USA when it came out but did appear on the Billboard Hot 100 some time later.  The picture is a still of  a young Bob Geldof singing in a music video of the song, with the lyrics below.

 

I Don’t Like Mondays (1979) – The Boomtown Rats

The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody’s gonna go to school today
She’s gonna make them stay at home
And daddy doesn’t understand it
He always said she was good as gold
And he can see no reasons
‘Cos there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be show-ow-ow-ow-own?

Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
I wanna shoo-oo-woo-woo-woo-oot the whole day down

The Telex machine is kept so clean
And it types to a waiting world
And mother feels so shocked
Father’s world is rocked
And their thoughts turn to their own little girl
Sweet 16 ain’t that peachy keen
Now that ain’t so neat to admit defeat
They can see no reasons
‘Cuz there are no reasons
What reasons do you need?
Oh Oh oh whoa whoa

Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
I wanna shoo-oo-oo-woo-woo-oot
The whole day down, down, down, shoot it all down

And all the playing’s stopped in the playground now
She wants to play with the toys a while
And school’s out early and soon we’ll be learning
And the lesson today is how to die
And then the bullhorn crackles
And the captain tackles
(With the problems of the how’s and why’s)
And he can see no reasons
‘Cos there are no reasons
What reason do you need to die, die?
Oh Oh Oh

Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like
I don’t like (Tell me why)
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like
I don’t like (Tell me why)
I don’t like Mondays
Tell me why
I don’t like Mondays
I wanna shoo-oo-oo-woo-woo-woot the whole day down