Recognisable by its distinctive lead synthesizer hook and ambiguous lyrics, 'Enola Gay' has come to be regarded as one of the greatest pop songs of the 1980s. It topped the charts in France, Italy and Portugal. The song was a sleeper hit in the UK: it entered the UK Singles Chart at number 35, but proved popular with audiences and 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. McCluskey has stated that the song is 'not a celebration' of the event, but hopes that it conveys 'an ambivalence about whether it was the right or the wrong thing to do.' Released as a single, 'Enola Gay' was an enormous success, going on to sell more than 5 million copies internationally.
Written by frontman Andy McCluskey, it addresses the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during the final stages of World War II and references Enola Gay and ' Little Boy', the Boeing B-29 Superfortress and nuclear weapon used in the bombing, respectively. ' Enola Gay' is an anti-war song by British synthpop band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), released as the only single from their 1980 album, Organisation.
