"Enola Gay" - O.M.D., 1980 (synthpop)

Enola Gay, you should have stayed at home yesterday
Aha words can't describe the feeling and the way you lied

These games you play, they're gonna end in more than tears someday
Aha Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way

It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been
We got your message on the radio, conditions normal and you're coming home

Enola Gay, is mother proud of little boy today
Aha this kiss you give, it's never ever gonna fade away

Enola Gay, it shouldn't ever have to end this way
Aha Enola Gay, it shouldn't fade in our dreams away

It's 8:15, and that's the time that it's always been
We got your message on the radio, conditions normal and you're coming home

Enola Gay, is mother proud of little boy today
Aha this kiss you give, it's never ever gonna fade away

True to the spirit of the 80's, O.M.D.'s (Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark) 1980 hit "Enola Gay" is a bright, catchy, poppy tune...with some incredibly dark and sinister lyrics. But that's all part of the idea, sometimes, isn't it - to get an otherwise hush-hush topic on the lips of thousands of people by making it cute or catchy? Sardonic gallows humor at its best. The song soared to No. 8 on the UK charts.

The Enola Gay was an aircraft - the B-29 Superfortress bomber that dropped the first atomic bomb on the city of Hiroshima, Japan in WWII on August 6, 1945. Enola Gay, in the song, is "mother" - impregnated with a "Little Boy" bomb that would go down in infamy.

Little Boy was the codename of that nuclear bomb, which was deployed over the city at 8:15 am that morning. It was dropped three days prior to the "Fat Man" bomb was used on Nagasaki. It exploded with a destructive power equivalent to 13-16 kilotons of TNT and killed approximately 140,000 unsuspecting civilians. Death was immediate and occurred either by blast, fire, or radiation. The death toll of this explosion is technically unknown because any people within the blast area were instantly cremated. The figures of those deaths are estimates gathered from area population information.

The first effect of a nuclear explosion is blinding light and then radiant heat from the fireball. Little Boy's fireball was 1,200 feet across. This intense fire melted glass and any water-based organisms (aka living things) were vaporized instantly. The blaze was even enough to vaporize one anonymous subject yet leave his shadow permanently etched on the stone steps of a bank building. But the bomb's fire isn't alone. This blaze would ignite secondary fires with electrical shorts and combustible and flammable materials.

Little Boy's blast, the fireball, was a result of x-ray heated air and sent shock and pressure waves travelling through the air at the speed of sound, which is the same as hearing a thunder roll. The blast levelled an area two miles in diameter from the detonation site, even turning buildings into kindling and rubble in a matter of seconds.

There were survivors, however to survive a nuclear explosion is only to die in the following fallout - the air particulate in the detonation zone and surrounding - contaminated with radioactive fission particles. The fallout area, sadly, is much larger than the blast and fire areas. They are easily spread by wind, rise up to the stratosphere, dissipate, and actually become part of the global environment forever. Thousands died in subsequent years due to the radioactive contamination of the area. Millions more suffered physical defects and serious illnesses as a result of the fallout.

The dropping of Little Boy by Enola Gay was a huge mistake, and as the song suggests, the Enola Gay should have stayed home that day.

"Enola Gay" - O.M.D., 1980

(compiled from various sources)