The song is based on the 50s progression, which repeats throughout the entire song. In a 2012 interview, the band mentioned that most of the melodic parts were recorded on a Korg Micro-Preset, and that the drum machine sound was "about the last thing to go on" the recording. Typical of early OMD compositions, the track does not feature a vocal chorus, and is recognisable by its strong, distinctive lead synthesizer hook and ambiguous lyrical content. It was a sleeper hit in OMD's native UK: the track entered the UK Singles Chart at number 35, but 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. The song was a hit in many countries, topping the charts in Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Nevertheless, it was an enormous success, going on to sell more than 5 million copies internationally. When released as a single, "Enola Gay", was misperceived by listeners with little knowledge of the Hiroshima bombing as a cryptic identification of the band as homosexual the track was banned from being played on popular BBC1 programme Swap Shop for fear that it would serve as a corrupting sexual influence on children. It was selected by the BBC for use during the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Critic Ned Raggett in AllMusic lauded the track as "astounding.a flat-out pop classic – clever, heartfelt, thrilling, and confident, not to mention catchy and arranged brilliantly" colleague Dave Thompson called it a "perfect synth-dance-pop extravaganza." It featured in MusicRadar's "The 40 Greatest Synth Tracks Ever" in 2009, who noted that the song "includes some of the biggest synth hooks of all time." In 2012, NME listed the track among the "100 Best Songs of the 1980s", describing McCluskey's vocal as "brilliantly quizzical" and the song as a "pop classic". "Enola Gay" has come to be regarded as one of the great pop songs.
Written by Andy McCluskey, it addresses the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, and directly mentions three components of the attack: the Boeing B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, which dropped the nuclear weapon Little Boy on Hiroshima at "8:15". It was the only single from the band's 1980 album, Organisation. " Enola Gay" is an anti-war song by the British synthpop group Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). Cover of the 12" remix single released in 2003.