“Enola Gay” by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark

"Enola Gay" was the only single pulled from Organisation, the 1980 second album from Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, and it's a bouncing, bright synth-pop tune about the darkest thing imaginable. Andy McCluskey, who sings and plays bass, wrote it about the plane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, near the end of World War II. In classic early OMD fashion there's no sung chorus at all: a synthesizer melody takes that job, while Paul Humphreys works the keyboards and Malcolm Holmes drives the drums.

Critics mostly liked it but gave it little chance, and some balked at what they heard as a gay anthem. It went to 8 in the UK anyway, their first top 10 at home, topped the charts in Italy, Portugal and Spain, and sold more than 5 million copies. Alongside 1986's "If You Leave", it's the song OMD are remembered for.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.