Streets of Your Town

McLennan wrote it in the Bondi flat he shared with Amanda Brown, the chorus and progression the same afternoon he was listening to the Church; Brown said it was written in, I would say, 10 minutes. The single, with "Wait Until June" on the B-side, runs 3:34. It was recorded at EMI Studios 301 on the seventh floor, on a 72-channel Neve 88R and an SSL K Series, with Wallis preferring the SSL, after a couple of weeks in the practice room. Forster and McLennan recorded guitars around a single microphone; Willsteed played bass and the acoustic solo on a nylon-string guitar through an octave pedal, Morrison's drums were mixed with drums Wallis programmed from her parts, and Brown whispered backing vocals. Forster told Mixdown there is tons of studio wizardry on the track, sonic swirls and clicks from Wallis, and that he was central to it. The band could not reproduce the solo live.

The bright, summery music carries darker lyrics; Andrew Stafford reads the chorus as suburban routine and the comfort of home and hears Brisbane in it. Released in the UK in July 1988 and in Australia in August, it reached 80 in the UK, 68 in Australia (or 70 on the Kent Music Report) and 30 in New Zealand, their highest placing on any national chart, and PopMatters called it the great hit song that wasn't. Paul Goldman directed a black-and-white performance video, and Kriv Stenders the more widely aired one using Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne imagery.

Ivy covered it on Guestroom, and Milky's "Just the Way You Are" (2002) samples its opening guitar chords. U2 quoted lines at a Brisbane concert in 2006 dedicated to McLennan, and it is in the film The Black Balloon (2008). It topped a Guardian poll of songs of Brisbane. Setlist.fm shows 85 plays, fifth among their songs. We do not know which version our upload is.