| Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark – Enola Gay Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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The Cold War was the subject of many 80s synthpop songs, among which "Enola Gay" is one of the best known. 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. 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 song looks back almost wistfully to the point in history when that state of existence was brought into being. 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 melancholy, bittersweet yet strangely kicky tune of the original song also expresses that feeling -- for young people at the time a song that they could dance to in the shadow of their own impending destruction seemed perfectly appropriate.) In many places throughout popular culture, not just song lyrics, But in saying, "It shouldn't ever have to end this way," the song is also making a tacit plea to change the direction of world events, challenging just a tiny bit the idea that nuclear destruction was completely inevitable. Many people living at the time truly believed that the Cold War would still be going on long after they were no longer alive -- if the world was not destroyed first -- yet because of "Enola Gay" and many other forms of popular expression that reminded people of these issues and gave them a way to articulate their fears (and hopes), popular movements around the world eventually forced a change of heart by political leaders. By the early 1990s, America has begun extensive nuclear disarmament and Soviet Russia had completely collapsed. The Cold War was over. But the disconsolate lyrics and eerie tune of "Enola Gay" still evoke the anxiety, fear, and determination of that strange era. |
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