I mentioned it last week, so I might as well put my music nerdiness up to the challenge and compile a list of the best (or at least the most interesting) songs about school shootings. Of course, much like last week's collection of suicide tunes, I obviously do not condone school shootings in any form. Instead, I suggest you just bury your teenage hatred deep within and use it later on to get a job at a snarky weekly paper. Worked for me!

"I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats

The finest of all songs on this grim topic adapts the tragic tale of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer, a San Diego girl who shot up her local elementary school, killing two and wounding nine. Her crime was one of the worst since it seemed so arbitrary; her only explanations being "I don't like Mondays; this livens up the day" and "I had no reason for it, and it was just a lot of fun." Enter Bob "Live Aid" Geldof and his Boomtown Rats who turned tragedy into a huge number-one hit with "I Don't Like Mondays." As an '80s hit, the song (not the band) has aged well, and still does a pretty solid job of portraying the confusion and randomness of this act.

"The Anatomy of a School Shooting" by Ill Bill

A performer who releases a song in both "rap" and "metal" versions is seldom good at either, and that describes Ill Bill nicely. You'd think having collaborated with El-P and Raekwon would have helped him kick the goofy shock-rap Insane Clown Posse comparison, but it really hasn't. In "The Anatomy of a School Shooting" he labors over lines like "small-town killing spree that's organized by the youth/fuck the media, them fags be disguising the truth" and produces an album that probably isn't all that good once the whippets and Faygo shooters run out. Juggalos are bummed.

"Kinslayer" by Nightwish

This absolutely cheeseball Finnish metal band is sort of like Evanescence, only with fewer lyrics about The Jesus and from a country with better healthcare. "Kinslayer" fits their sound well; operatic metal for people who probably own more Dream Theater records than they do albums by Mayhem, or even Black Sabbath for that matter. With lyrics like "time to die, poor mates/you made me what I am," Nightwish makes the violence seem less like a school shooting and more like something Oliver Twist would say before shooting up the orphanage.

"Ronnie" by Metallica

Would opening fire on your school be worth it if Metallica wrote a song about you? The answer is an enthusiastic "NO!" if it's the new Metallica, who allegedly penned "Ronnie" about a real-life tormented school shooter for their horrific Load album. (Somewhere the ghost of Cliff Burton must be contemplating pulling a Columbine-style massacre on his old band after hearing this.) If there ever was a deterrent for bringing a gun to school, this terrible song is it.