From '' Enola Gay ''
Label: Sheep Records – KEBAB 004
Format: Vinyl, 7", Orange
Country: Switzerland
Released: 1997
Tracklist
A Enola Gay
Written-By – Andy McCluskey
B Vahim
Written-By – Frank Gerritsen
🎵 [SONG INFO]
"Enola Gay" is an anti-war song by the British synthpop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD).
It was the only single from the band's 1980 album, Organisation.
Written by Andy McCluskey, it addresses the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, and directly mentions three components of the attack: the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, which dropped the nuclear weapon Little Boy on Hiroshima at "8:15".
"Enola Gay" has come to be regarded as one of the great pop songs.
Critic Ned Raggett in AllMusic lauded the track as "astounding...a flat-out pop classic – clever, heartfelt, thrilling, and confident, not to mention catchy and arranged brilliantly"; colleague Dave Thompson called it a "perfect synth-dance-pop extravaganza."
It featured in MusicRadar's "The 40 Greatest Synth Tracks Ever" in 2009, who noted that the song "includes some of the biggest synth hooks of all time."
In 2012, NME listed the track among the "100 Best Songs of the 1980s", describing McCluskey's vocal as "brilliantly quizzical" and the song as a "pop classic".
It was selected by the BBC for use during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.
When released as a single, "Enola Gay", was misperceived by listeners with little knowledge of the Hiroshima bombing as a cryptic identification of the band as homosexual; the track was banned from being played on popular BBC1 programme Swap Shop for fear that it would serve as a corrupting sexual influence on children.
Nevertheless, it was an enormous success, going on to sell more than 5 million copies internationally.
The song was a hit in many countries, topping the charts in France, Italy and Portugal.
It was a sleeper hit in OMD's native UK: the track entered the UK Singles Chart at number 35, but climbed 27 places over the next 3 weeks to reach a peak of number 8, thus becoming the group's first Top 10 hit in their home country.
Arrangement
In a 2012 interview, the band mentioned that most of the melodic parts were recorded on a Korg Micro-Preset, and that the drum machine sound was "about the last thing to go on" the recording.
The song is based on the 50s progression, which repeats throughout the entire song.
Title
The song is named after the Enola Gay, the USAAF B-29 Superfortress bomber that carried Little Boy, the first atomic bomb to be used in an act of war, dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, killing more than 100,000 of its citizens.
The name of the bomber itself was chosen by its pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets, who named it after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets (1893–1983), who had been named for the heroine of the novel Enola; or, Her fatal mistake.
Lyrics
The lyrics to the song reflect on the decision to use the bomb and ask the listener to consider whether the bombings were necessary ("It shouldn't ever have to end this way").
The phrase, "Is mother proud of Little Boy today?", is an allusion to both the nickname of the uranium bomb, as well as the fact that pilot Paul Tibbets named the aircraft after his mother.
The phrase, "It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been", refers to the time of detonation over Hiroshima at 8:15am JST; as many timepieces were 'frozen' by the effects of the blast, it becomes 'the time that it's always been'.
The song was also released during controversy surrounding the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's decision to allow US nuclear missiles to be stationed in Britain.
Chart (1980–1981) / Peak position
Australia (Kent Music Report) / 47
France (IFOP) / 1
Ireland (IRMA) / 14
Italy (FIMI) / 1
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ) / 31
Portuguese Singles Chart / 1
Spain (AFE) / 1
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade) / 2
UK Singles (Official Charts Company) / 8
US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play / 34
Alternate versions
An early version of the song with a slightly different arrangement appears on the group's Peel Sessions 1979–1983 album.
A live performance, recorded at the Guildhall in Portsmouth, England on 19 September 1980, is featured in the film Urgh! A Music War.
Home computer influence
The song is popular with early home computer enthusiasts being used in popular computer demos such as Swinth (Commodore 64).
16-Bit computers brought with them the popular music tracker format where no fewer than a dozen versions exist.
Waltz with Bashir
The song was featured in the critically acclaimed 2008 Israeli film Waltz with Bashir, directed by Ari Folman, which documented the experiences of Folman as a young soldier in the 1982 Lebanon War.
The track also features on the Max Richter soundtrack of the film.
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