The motif of the clock stopped at 8:15, the indelible kiss (of the heat flash from the bomb blast), and the call of "conditions normal," all reference that sense of history frozen on the precipice of armageddon. The song looks back almost wistfully to the point in history when that state of existence was brought into being. The song is even more specific - it is about living in the 1980s under the shadow of Cold War fears of atomic war and nuclear annihilation, which many people at the time viewed as inevitable given the way world events seemed to be going. The other posters who point out the obvious reference to the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima ("Little Boy"), and the evocation of the imagery of a mother and her child as an ironic metaphor for the relationship between the bomber and the bomb, are all correct. Learn more at Patreon.General CommentThe Cold War was the subject of many 80s synthpop songs, among which "Enola Gay" is one of the best known. There are a bunch of exclusive perks only for patrons: playlists, newsletters, downloads, discussions, polls - hell, tell us what song you would like to hear covered and we will make it happen. Cover Me is now on Patreon! If you love cover songs, we hope you will consider supporting us there with a small monthly subscription. More info about the new album The Punishment of Luxury can be found on OMD’s website. The original version of “Enola Gay” can be found on iTunes and Amazon.
As you’ll see, the song has inspired a variety of cross-genre covers well worth sharing…īringing it all home is this must-see campy doo-wop and soul version. “Enola Gay” has been ranked as one of the greatest songs of the ’80s by NME, and MusicRadar says that “its almost naive arrangement… includes some of the biggest synth hooks of all time.” But it turns out a good cover of “Enola Gay” doesn’t need a synthesizer. Founding members Paul Humphreys and Andy McCluskey saw their first significant UK and US dance chart success with the release of “Enola Gay.” Named for the plane that dropped the first A-bomb ever dropped on a city, the McCluskey-penned antiwar dance track was the only single from their second album Organisation, and predated the success the band would experience in the late-‘80s with Top 20 hits like “If You Leave,” “Dreaming,” and “(Forever) Live and Die.” Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, also known as OMD, formed in 1978 in northwest England. But the popular new wave band who recorded the original version happens to be in the news themselves because of a brand-new studio album, their thirteenth, that dropped on September 1 st. A discussion about a 1980 synth-pop song that references the atomic bombing of Hiroshima may run the risk of being, unintentionally, too close to current world events.