Song · Boomtown Rats
“Dave” by Boomtown Rats
From the album In the Long Grass (1984)
“Dave” by Boomtown Rats appears on 3 radio countdowns from 2 stations between 1985 and 1988. It was first released in 1984 on the album In the Long Grass. Its best result is #94 on the KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1985. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #186 alternative song of 1985 and #5,560 alternative song of all time.
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Bob Geldof wrote "Dave" on his own, words and music, for In the Long Grass, the Boomtown Rats' sixth studio album, and it surfaced at the tail end of 1984. The band produced it themselves, Martin Rex engineered and Bob Clearmountain mixed.
It comes from the end of the line. In the Long Grass was the last record by the Rats as a five-piece and the last with keyboardist Johnnie Fingers, and it sold worse than anything they had made, missing the UK album chart altogether and limping to 188 in America. Geldof has since said he was already anxious, unhappy with the album's quality and its poor sales, on the day he caught the BBC's report on the Ethiopian famine that set Band Aid in motion. The Rats made no more studio music for over three decades.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1985 | 94 | KROQ Los Angeles, CA | KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 1985 | 107 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1988 | 422 | KROQ | KROQ Flashback 500 (Memorial Day 1988) | 496 |
| 1988 | 364 | Live 105 | Live 105 Top 500 Songs of All-Time (Memorial Day 1988) | 501 |
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