No Place Like Nundah By The Double Happiness: An Impression of Brisbane Through Memory and Music
Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by The Double Happiness
No Place Like Nundah is the latest vinyl single by The Double Happiness. This is a dreamy surf-meets-shoegaze tribute to Brisbane. An impression of a city through the eyes of those who live here. Both as it was and as it is.
This isn’t a “new” release as such, but a long-awaited physical edition. As 4000 Records’ John Russell told me earlier today, people often ask him which album this song is on. (None, yet.) So he has decided to make it available as a 7-inch single.
Resisting the Rush, Embracing the City
Cities demand speed, productivity, and often a cold disregard for the past. The warmth of human experience is often swept aside. This song resists that. It lingers, slows time, and invites us to truly see a city—not as a relentless profit-driven system, but as a place shaped by people and memories.
Hollywood, the boulevards of Paris—these are places we may never go yet somehow know by heart. Their stories are told again and again, immortalized in film and song.
But this song invites us to turn inward, to consider the places we move through every day but rarely stop to see. What about Auchenflower, Brisbane? What about the La Dolce Vita Ristorante and its quirky replica Eiffel Tower?
I hear a lyric like that, and I connect. As a child, I saw that tower long before I knew Paris was a place.
Memory, in this way, outruns geography.
Brisbane Beneath the Surface: A City of Overlooked Riches and Cultural Depth
A young music fan, Ali Dark, recently dropped a zine at my record store Glitter Records. Titled Time To Reset his zine was filled with photos of Brisbane buildings that he once photographed but, as of 2025, no longer exist. No Place Like Nundah also blends elements of the city’s still-here and presently not present—landmarks like the Eiffel Tower replica and the Brisbane city fountains, which many locals find more inviting than the concrete structures now replacing them.
This song’s drifting narrative, much like the zine, serves as an act of resistance to time’s erasure, preserving the essence of Brisbane life, and the small events that make it up, through sound and memory.
Urban Memory Work At A Grassroots Level
Just as The Go-Betweens’ 1988 single Streets of Your Town made an unprecedented pop-cultural acknowledgment of Brisbane and regional identity, No Place Like Nundah continues this tradition. Like The Go-Betweens’ earlier song, it carries a rich stream of free association (to borrow a term from Sigmund Freud). This is a fluid, evocative reflection of place and memory.
The song unfolds like a waking dream, with thoughts emerging unfiltered, weaving together in a way that feels deeply personal.
As a listener, I experience two distinct sensations—first, the act of recalling the past, and second, the feeling of remembering in the present alongside a friend or family member. I admire how music like this explores multiple themes and emotions at once, blurring time and perspective to express something unique.
Institutions like universities—and initiatives such as the Shanghai Memory Project—refer to this as “memory work.” A structured process of preserving and reconstructing cultural narratives through archival research and storytelling. However, in this case, it takes shape naturally at a grassroots level. This song is driven by personal experiences, local history, and community storytelling. This approach makes memory more immediate and deeply personal.
Songs Like This Teach Us to See Brisbane Differently
If you have lived in Brisbane, you know it—but do you truly understand it? It’s a city often spoken of, often seen, but rarely understood—oversimplified in many ways, reduced to clichés: pictures of big metal bridges, animal mascots, commercial success stories.
As the owner of a record store, I’ve built a business around uncovering what is overlooked. To me, songs such as No Place Like Nundah are welcome reminders that Brisbane’s true wealth lies in its subcultures, its nuances, and hidden stories.
I also see songs like this as vital explorations—investigations into the human condition, with reference to Brisbane.
The Double Happiness Have Made A Song That Stays With You
What strikes me is how this song, lyrically drifting through a city in time, has itself become unstuck in time—living on well after its 2019 release and its 2020 4ZZZ Community Radio Hot 100 ranking. Now, as a vinyl record, it may last for a century or more, inscribed into grooves that hold its essence.
Perhaps this is why this song has stuck around. It works—dreamy, immediate, comforting.
I can see why people keep coming back to it.
More On The Double Happiness Limited Vinyl Release
Zenith Records has pressed No Place Like Nundah onto 7” black vinyl, with 4000 Records handling its release. Originally a standalone digital single in 2019, this limited edition of 300 copies has no planned repress, making it a sought-after collector’s item. The vinyl also features a B-side cover of “Footprints in the Dark” by Ancient Channels.
The song holds a special place in Brisbane’s music scene, ranking #15 in the 2020 4ZZZ Hot 100. Fans can purchase the vinyl or digital album via Bandcamp, with streaming available through the Bandcamp app. A limited number of copies are also available at Glitter Records.
