30 Seconds Over Tokyo

Released in December 1975 on Hearthan, the label Thomas ran himself, with Heart of Darkness on the B-side. The song was written by Thomas, Peter Laughner and Gene O'Connor during their time in Rocket From the Tombs. Craig Bell, that band's bassist, remembered that the riff came from O'Connor and Laughner and that Thomas wrote the words. The lyrics follow the 1942 Doolittle Raid from the viewpoint of a pilot on a suicide mission, and the title comes from Captain Ted W. Lawson's 1943 book. Thomas said that he first met the story in a memoir in third grade. He called the song a pop song and said it was probably the last time he wrote in a straight narrative form.

It was made at Audio Recording in Cleveland between 28 September and 1 October 1975, produced by Pere Ubu and Bill Cavanaugh. Ravenstine played an EML 200 synthesizer and used it to imitate the radial engines of wartime planes and the static of the radio transmission at the end, where Thomas's voice is filtered to sound like a failing aircraft radio. Everyone played in the free improvisation sections, which Herman described as "every man for himself". Ravenstine said he agreed to make the record because he had loved airplanes since he was a kid, and left when the others wanted to play gigs, but later asked to return. He went on to become an airline pilot.

Uncut's Tom Pinnock called it "post-punk before its time", and Simon Reynolds wrote in Rip It Up and Start Again that it was "almost prog in its structural strangeness". Mojo called it and its follow-up Final Solution "stunning". Rocket From the Tombs made an early version at their home studio in February 1975 and re-recorded the song in a heavier style after reforming in 2003. The Pere Ubu single reappeared on the 1978 EP Datapanik in the Year Zero and in the 2015 box set Elitism for the People 1975-1978, and Fire Records reissued it on Record Store Day 2016 in a limited run of 1,000.