Songfacts®:

• You might expect an ode to Adelaide, Australia, from Sia, Jimmy Barnes, Orianthi, or one of the city's other famous musical progeny, but Ben Folds? The sardonic piano man from North Carolina?
  
  Turns out, he loves the place, and even wrote this song about it.
  
  Folds met a musician named Frally Hynes when he was traveling in Australia in 1998. In 1999, they got married and, a month later, had twins, Gracie and Louis. They moved to Adelaide that year, and in 2004, Folds wrote this song about the city. He lived there until 2006, when he and Hynes got divorced and he moved back to America.
• Adelaide isn't the kind of glossy city where you'd expect a rock star like folds to live - it's often derided as being pedestrian and boring. Folds was often asked why he chose to live there, which he addresses in this song:
  
  A voice says, "Why Adelaide?"
  You could live anywhere
  
  His answer:
  
  Because I want to
  I really really want to
• Folds' group, the Ben Folds Five, broke up in 2000, the year after he moved to Adelaide. He spent a lot more time changing diapers and a lot less time touring, but kept making music and, in 2001 (on September 11, unfortunately), released his first album as a solo artist, Rockin' The Suburbs. "Adelaide" he included on a 2004 EP called Super D, with his wife Frally Hynes on the cover. The song is also included on his 2006 compilation Supersunnyspeedgraphic, The LP.
• In case you don't speak Australian, we'll explain these lines:
  
  Now I see the bogans
  At the motor race
  
  "Bogans" are uncultured sorts, what Americans would call "jamokes" and Brits would call "punters." The motor race would be the Adelaide 500, a popular annual Supercars race.
• Folds gets another local reference in when he sings about the Rundle Mall with its silver balls. Known as the "Mall's Balls," these are two giant orbs stacked on top of each other that live outside the entrance.