# The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet

> The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet is an unidentified mid-1980s post-punk track recorded from German radio and uploaded in 2007, sparking a 17-year global hunt solved in 2024 as "Subways of Your Mind" by FEX.

"The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet" is the nickname for an unidentified post-punk track recorded from German radio in the mid-1980s that triggered a 17-year global hunt to discover who made it. First uploaded to music forums in 2007, the song blew up into a worldwide investigation after hitting Reddit and YouTube in 2019[1]. In November 2024, Reddit user marijn1412 finally identified it as "Subways of Your Mind" by FEX, a little-known German new wave band from Kiel[2].

## Origin
The story starts in the mid-1980s in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. A teenager named Darius S. routinely recorded songs off the radio onto cassette tapes from NDR broadcasts[1]. One of his cassettes, which also contained tracks by XTC and The Cure, captured an unknown song most likely from a program called *Musik für junge Leute* ("Music for Young People") hosted by British DJ Paul Baskerville[3]. Darius had a habit of trimming DJ chatter between songs for cleaner recordings, which is probably why no song title or station identification survived on the tape.

The cassette sat untouched for over two decades. On March 18, 2007, Darius's sister uploaded the track to the music forums spiritofradio.ca and best-of-80s.de under the username "bluuue," explaining it had been recorded from German radio in the 1980s and asking if anyone could identify it[5]. Nobody could, and the post barely registered.

- **Platform:** spiritofradio.ca, best-of-80s.de (first upload), Reddit / YouTube (viral spread)
- **Creator:** Lydia / "bluuue" (original uploader), Gabriel Vieira (Reddit revival), Justin Whang (YouTube popularizer)
- **Date:** 2007 (first upload), 2019 (viral spread)

## Overview
The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet is a roughly four-minute post-punk track with male vocals, guitar, bass, drums, and a cheap-sounding synthesizer[3]. The recording quality is murky, likely captured from a demo tape broadcast on radio, and the lyrics are nearly impossible to make out even for native English speakers. The singer is believed to be a non-native English speaker, adding another obstacle for anyone attempting a transcription.

For years, listeners argued over whether key lines said "like the wind," "blind the wind," "check it in, check it out," or "subways of my mind"[3]. Musically, the track was standard early-1980s new wave, drawing comparisons to Depeche Mode, The Cure, and Sisters of Mercy. What made it extraordinary wasn't the music itself but the fact that no music database, recognition software, or rights registry could produce a match[1].

## How It Spread
The song drifted in obscurity for years. A YouTube upload from April 2011, titled "Unkonow Song," collected about 7,100 views over eight years[5].

Everything changed in 2019. Brazilian music enthusiast Gabriel Vieira, who had known about the track since 2006, uploaded it to his YouTube channel in April and began posting it across dozens of music subreddits[1]. On July 1, 2019, he created the dedicated community r/TheMysteriousSong, which grew to tens of thousands of members. That same month, YouTuber Justin Whang posted a deep-dive video about the song, and the search went international[5].

German radio station Radio Eins played the track on air in August 2019, and coverage spread to major outlets including *Rolling Stone* and *Zeit Online*[3]. The original uploader, now going by "Lydia," reconnected with the search community around this time and confirmed the backstory about her brother's recordings. She provided higher-quality versions of the audio in both MP3 and FLAC[2].

A Wikipedia article about the song was created in December 2019. But despite years of organized effort and contact with hundreds of defunct bands from the era, the track stayed unidentified[1].

## How to Use
The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet is not a traditional meme template. It functions as a cultural reference point for internet mysteries and collaborative investigation. People typically invoke it in a few ways:

- **As shorthand for an unsolvable puzzle:** When someone encounters unidentified media with no known source, comparing it to "the most mysterious song on the internet" signals the depth of the mystery.
- **In lostwave communities:** The song is the flagship example of "lostwave," a label for music of unknown or obscure origins. Finding a new unidentified track is often framed as "the next most mysterious song."
- **As a case study in crowdsourced research:** The 17-year investigation and its eventual resolution are frequently cited in conversations about the power of distributed internet detective work.

## Cultural Impact
The search for the Most Mysterious Song became one of the internet's longest collaborative investigations. The subreddit r/TheMysteriousSong attracted tens of thousands of members, and the story drew coverage from CBS News, *Der Spiegel*, *Rolling Stone*, *Zeit Online*, and other outlets worldwide[1]. The identification in November 2024 generated a fresh wave of international media attention[2].

The track is widely considered the defining example of "lostwave," a community-coined term for unidentified music with obscure origins. The story showed how a combination of online community organization, newspaper archive research, and old-fashioned detective work could solve a puzzle that automated tools like Shazam and professional music databases could not[3].

For FEX, the resolution brought unexpected fame four decades after their regional heyday. Hädrich told CBS News that the attention came "suddenly" for the band after a lifetime of obscurity[1]. Their planned reunion and re-recording represent a rare case where solving an internet mystery directly revived a forgotten artist's career.

## Fun Facts
- The cassette that started everything also contained tracks by XTC and The Cure, placing the mystery track squarely in early-1980s new wave radio[1].
- Shazam could not help for years because a teenager had uploaded the song to Spotify as his own, poisoning the software's identification database[3].
- The original recorder Darius noted the title as "Blind the Wind" on the cassette, but the community agreed the lyric more likely said "Like the Wind" or something else entirely[3].
- FEX had never registered "Subways of Your Mind" with GEMA, which is why the song never appeared in Germany's comprehensive music rights database[1].
- Despite attracting a global investigation and enormous online attention, the band members had no idea about any of it until a Reddit user emailed them in 2024[1].

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet?
It is the nickname for an unidentified post-punk song recorded from German radio in the mid-1980s. For 17 years, internet communities tried to identify it. In November 2024, Reddit user marijn1412 revealed it to be "Subways of Your Mind" by the German band FEX[1].

### Where did The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet come from?
A German teenager named Darius S. recorded it from a radio broadcast, likely NDR's *Musik für junge Leute*, around 1984 in Wilhelmshaven. His sister uploaded it to music forums in March 2007[1].

### What does The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet mean?
The song captures a melancholic, Cold War-era mood typical of 1980s new wave. Its lyrics mix dark imagery with hopeful lines, though the exact words were debated for years due to the poor recording quality[3].

### How do you use The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet?
It is typically referenced as the gold standard for internet music mysteries. People invoke it when discussing unidentified media, collaborative online investigations, or the "lostwave" subculture of unknown music identification[1].

### Is The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet still popular?
The mystery was solved in November 2024, generating worldwide media attention[2]. The subreddit r/TheMysteriousSong is still active, with members now searching for other lost tracks[2].

### Who solved the mystery?
Reddit user marijn1412 identified the song in November 2024 by researching regional newspaper archives about 1980s music events in northern Germany[2].

### What band recorded the song?
FEX, a four-piece rock band from Kiel, Germany, active in the early-to-mid 1980s. The lineup included lead vocalist and composer Ture Rückwardt and keyboardist/guitarist Michael Hädrich[1].

### Why couldn't Shazam identify the song?
A teenager uploaded the song to Spotify claiming it as his own, which caused Shazam to return false results. The song also was not in any commercial database because FEX had never distributed it through normal channels[3].

### What was the song actually called?
"Subways of Your Mind." The original recorder Darius had noted it as "Blind the Wind" on the cassette, but the community debated multiple possible titles for years, including "Like the Wind" and "Check It In, Check It Out"[3].

### When did the search go viral?
In mid-2019, after Gabriel Vieira posted the song across Reddit and YouTuber Justin Whang made a video about it in July of that year[1].

### Who uploaded the song to the internet?
The song was first uploaded to music forums in 2007 by the sister of the original radio recorder, after she digitized his cassette tape[1].

### Is FEX reuniting?
Yes. Following the identification, the band announced plans to reunite, re-record "Subways of Your Mind," and produce a music video for it[2].

## References
1. [The 'most mysterious song on the internet' has FINALLY been identified - and it's an 80s rock hit | Daily Mail Online](<https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-14047663/mysterious-song-internet-FINALLY-identified.html>)
2. [Самая Загадочная Песня в Интернете (The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet) НА РУССКОМ (ПЕРЕВОД) - смотреть видео онлайн от «Невероятные обновления!» в хорошем качестве, бесплатно опубликованное 25 апреля 2024 года в 18:54:13 00:03:49.](<https://rutube.ru/video/cc3fd0ddab1cd4ed0a916216e070b5fe/>)
3. ["Most mysterious song on the internet" identified after 17 years — and the band was oblivious to the online phenomenon - CBS News](<https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mystery-song-identified-subways-of-your-mind-fex/>)
4. [The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet - Know Your Meme](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/the-most-mysterious-song-on-the-internet>)
5. [List of Internet phenomena](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Internet_phenomena>)
6. [The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet - Urban Dictionary](<https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%20Most%20Mysterious%20Song%20On%20The%20Internet>)
7. [Subways of Your Mind - Wikipedia](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Mysterious_Song_on_the_Internet>)
8. ["The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet": Wer kennt diesen Song? | DIE ZEIT](<https://www.zeit.de/kultur/musik/2019-09/the-most-mysterious-song-on-the-internet-popkultur>)

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