The Enola Gay was the American plane that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima in World War II. It was named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the plane's pilot, Paul Tibbets. So why did the electronic music group OMD write a song about it? In our 2010 interview, we asked their lead singer Andy McCluskey, who replied: "Many people simply don't know what it's actually about. Some even thought it was a coded message that we were gay. We were both geeks about WWII airplanes. The most famous and influential single bomber was Enola Gay. Obvious choice for us, really."
OMD is the shortened form of the band's full name: Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark. This was the first of 7 Top-10 UK singles for the group; their only US hit was "If You Leave," which was written for the 1985 movie Pretty In Pink.
OMD played this in the 1981 cult film Urgh! A Music War, which is a collection of Punk and New Wave band performances.
Andy McCluskey of OMD explained in a September 2010 interview with CMU how the OMD duo create a track. "The music always comes first, usually inspired by a noise or drum pattern, or a sample or something. But I do have ideas about songs I want to write, lyrically or thematically. In the early days I was Mr. Anorak, I had a ring binder full of proposed song titles and ideas that I tried to marry with the music we made and I'd go, 'Oh, that might go on that'. So the music always comes first and the words go on top."
