In Upper Roma Street, a three-metre-high mural topped with barbed wire now commemorates 40 years since the release of the Saints' first album, (I'm) Stranded.

The single and album were breathtaking in their day anda musical roar from bored, frustrated Brisbane-ites in 1976.

The Saints couldn't find a record label brave enough to release it, so they did it themselves on their own Fatal label.

England's Sounds magazine described it as "the single of this and every week".

The album(I'm) Stranded was released in February 1977, a musical shockwave AllMusic described it as "a blasting, blistering, scorching sound no one had heard before".

The Saints were the antithesis to the quirky, sometimes fey pop of the Go-Betweens and though neither sold huge numbers of records, their influence on rock culture was staggering.

Music writer Andrew Stafford said it was "past overdue" that Brisbane recognised the Saints.

"I think along with the Go-Betweens, they're Brisbane's two musical calling cards. I don't think anyone would dispute that," Stafford, the author of respected Brisbane music historyPig City said.

"We have a Go Between Bridge and I think once that landmark was in place, everybody asked quite rightly, ???What about the Saints?'

"There would not be a modern Brisbane music scene if not for the Saints.

"They were the band that actually started it and there was really a mushroom cloud from there, a real explosion of energy."

Guitarist Ed Kuepperco-founded the Saints in 1974 with friends singer Chris Bailey and Ivor Hay on drums and piano, while Kym Bradshaw joined on bass.

Friends, brothers and sisters from the Kuepper, Bailey, Hay and Bradshaw families were in Upper Roma Street this week to stare up at the mural's display of the giant lyrics of the song's third verse, in which the song rails at that '70s frustration.

In 1976, they were all stranded in Brisbane's outer western suburbs.

Kuepper always felt the Saints were good enough to make a great record.

"I was thinking that I wanted to have an absolute killer rock-and-roll record with a great rock-and-roll band," he said.

"That was pretty much my sole intention. Music for me was the big salvation. It made everything that was wrong about the world feel quite good."

The driving chorus for (I'm) Stranded came to Kuepper as he was riding on a train and the song took shape at their Petrie Terrace practice room, called Club 76, close to today's Suncorp Stadium.

Kuepper loves the barbed wire that surrounds the mural,byartist team Frank and Mimi, and loves the way he is smoking in the illustration.

"I used to smoke all the time in those days, so I think it is great that it's incorporated," he said.

And he likes the fact the mural captures the four young Saints looking like themselves, because they never saw themselves as punks.

"We had our own look, we had our own sound and we were doing it before the UK bands were. So why would we want to latch on to that?" he said.

"That image was us. You can almost hear the music from the image. We didn't represent a movement, we represented ourselves."

Bailey now lives in the Netherlands and could not come to see the mural. His "folkie" brother Michael and sister Carol came and said country-town Brisbane of the 1970s was a different city.

Michael Bailey said the Brisbane of decades past was exactly the type of place in Australia former prime minister Paul Keating imagined in 1990 when he told Bob Hawke Australia was "the arse end of the world".

"I think music was always all they wanted," he said.

Kuepper's wife, Judi, who has provided the artwork for his post-Saints musical career, said the mural captured the Brisbane of the era.

"I think using the lyrics is a great idea. It captures the aesthetic of '70s; the cut-and-paste type of thing we did in those days," she said.

The mural is a forerunner to Brisbane's $1 million new music trail, being put together by former Go-Betweens guitarist John Willsteed, now a QUT academic and a graphic artist.

An application for a three-year project has gone to the Australian Research Council and a decision is expected in February 2018.