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Song Stories

“Enola Gay”

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark | 1980

"Enola Gay" is a synthpop song with an unlikely provenance: It was named after the bomber (which, in turn, was named after the pilot's mother) that dropped the devastating "Little Boy" atomic bomb on Hiroshima during WWII. "Many people simply don't know what it's actually about," Andy McCluskey of the British duo said. "Some even thought it was a coded message that we were gay." Actually, OMD had a much simpler explanation as to where the song came from. "We were both geeks about WWII airplanes," he said. "The most famous and influential single bomber was Enola Gay. Obvious choice for us, really."

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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