Songfacts®:

• "El Alamein" takes its name from the Egyptian town associated with major World War II battles. However, DMA's guitarist Matt Mason's more immediate inspiration was the El Alamein Memorial Fountain in Kings Cross, Sydney. "There's a place called King's Cross in Sydney where I lived for a bit and it has a big fountain called the El Alamein fountain," he told NME. "I had the idea that the first verse could be about this guy in the battle of El Alamein, and then as the song goes on it's about a guy walking past the fountain and going through his own battles, different generations and different experiences and the world changing around the fountain."
• Mason isn't particularly interested in military history. His fascination with the fountain is more immediate, and considerably more feathered. The fountain is famously frequented by Australian white ibises, affectionately known in Australia as "bin chickens" for their habit of scavenging through trash. The birds have become an informal mascot for DMA's, even appearing on the band's logo and merch.
• The track opens the band's self-titled fifth album, DMA's. Mason, singer Tommy O'Dell, and guitarist Johnny Took wrote the song alongside their touring drummer Liam Hoskins and rapper Nooky (from the First Nations hip-hop group 3%).
• The band handled the production alongside Mansionair's Lachlan "Lach" Bostock, with recording split between their home studio in Glebe, Sydney, and sessions in Los Angeles. For the album, the band deliberately chased the raw, unpolished energy of their 2016 debut, Hills End. Mason noted they favored feeling over technical precision, even keeping original demo vocals when polished studio takes lost that initial spark.
  
  Calling the record a "full-circle moment," the band found a fitting motif in "El Alamein," a track about people moving through different eras and struggles while a familiar local landmark stays right where it is.
• DMA's was the trio's first Australian #1 album, debuting at the top of the ARIA Albums Chart published August 28, 2026. Their previous highest chart positions was the #2 achieved by both The Glow and How Many Dreams?.