The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

A little sidetrack here - and for some, perhaps, a welcome one. A time-out from all the madness.

A mystery!

Personally, I love a good mystery, and many of you do too.

I admit to being a little obsessed with this one. It's all about a song, provisionally called 'Like The Wind'. It's been a mystery for a long time. To this day, no one knows where the song came from, who sang it, what it's really called, what label released it or when - nothing! An army of internet sleuths have been hammering away at it for years, on Reddit, Youtube, 4chan - but it's a rabbit hole that has no exit. It's still a mystery.

It's also a pretty decent song. The more you listen it, the more it grows on you, and the more you feel like you know it, or have heard it before. I guarantee you haven't. But it sounds a bit like something The Cure recorded but never released.

What is known is this: The song was played on national radio, as far as anyone knows just once, in West Germany in 1984. A kid, known only as Darius S was an avid radio-listener and often taped the hits as they played over the airwaves. On this day he recorded several songs on a cassette, by Depeche Mode, Heaven 17, Simple Minds and others - and this one mystery song.

For years the tape lay forgotten, until the age of the internet. Then he went in search of it with Google to help him. But he never found it. To this day, no one has found it, or solved the mystery of where this song came from, or the name of the band.

The song has been remixed and remastered by various people in an attempt to clean it up and decipher the lyrics. Some insist the vocalist is singing in a weird mishmash of English, German, and Russian - and the prevailing theory is this song originates from beyond the Iron Curtain, and has simply been lost over time. Maybe that's true, but I beg to differ on the language; it's English all the way through. Using a remastered version pitched up to B-minor, I'm reasonably confident of the lyrics I've produced below.

Without further ado, here's the original version of the song, as taped by Darius S from national German radio on a day in 1984.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zPGf4liO-KQ

Pitch-corrected version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK32YKx1wpM

If you're interested in knowing a little more, this short vid goes deeper.

The Most Mysterious Song on The Internet | The Story of "Like The Wind"

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nWqKFgHpjF8

Any fan of 80s music should appreciate this song. I can't think of any other song that so many people have listened to, and enjoyed, without ever knowing who the artist is, or paying them a single penny for it. If for no other reason, I'd like to see this mystery solved so the original artist can get the recognition they deserve.

My interpretation of the lyrics..

"LIKE THE WIND"

Like the wind
You came here runnin"
Take the consequence of livin'

There's no space
There's no tomorrow
There's no sense of communication

Day in day out,
the sun will never shine,
Paranoid anyway
In the subways of your mind

Like the wind
You're warm in summer
Let a smile be your companion

There's no place
And there's no sorrow
In the young and restless dreamer

Day in day out,
the sun will never shine,
Paranoid anyway
In the subways of your mind

Day in day out,
the sun will never shine,
Paranoid anyway
In the subways of your mind

Day in day out,
It’s the summer blues
Day in day out,
Is it really you,
Day in day out,
It’s the summer blues,
Day in day out,
Is it really you… (repeats)

[ExomatrixTV]

• source

The mystery of the unidentified song gained viral popularity in 2019, when a Brazilian teenager named Gabriel da Silva Vieira began searching for the song's origin, after being informed about it by Nicolas Zuniga of the Spanish record label Dead Wax Records. Gabriel uploaded the circulated snippet of the song to YouTube and many music-related Reddit communities, and eventually founded r/TheMysteriousSong.[5]

On May 27, 2019, Australian website Tone Deaf wrote the earliest article focusing on the song, with author Tyler Jenke discussing the preliminary stages of the search for the track, and noting that the search was similar to a 2013 search for a song which was ultimately identified as "Up On The Roof" by Swedish musician Johan Lindell.[6]

On July 9, 2019, American YouTuber Justin Whang posted an episode of Tales from the Internet discussing the song, and the progress of the search up to that point. The video's release further galvanized Internet users to contribute to the effort to identify the song.[2][5] After the release of Whang's video, Reddit user u/johnnymetoo posted the complete version of the song, which he obtained from a link on one of Lydia's Usenet posts before deletion.[7]

Searchers made contact with individuals potentially pertinent to the search, such as Paul Baskerville, one of the Musik Für Junge Leute hosts, GEMA, a German government and performance rights organization, and a YouTube channel named "80zforever", which posts obscure music.[1] Baskerville agreed to play the song on Nachtclub, his then-current radio show, on July 21, 2019.[8] Although no new leads came of it, it did make Lydia and Darius S. aware of the new wave of investigation, and Lydia subsequently became involved with the Reddit community in August.[8]

On July 9, 2020, Reddit user u/FlexxonMobil acquired the complete list of songs Baskerville had played on Musik Für Junge Leute (Music for Young People) in 1984 and published it on the site.[9] After some searching, users concluded that the song was not in that list, effectively ruling out the theory that Baskerville had played the song.[10] The remaining Musik Für Junge Leute playlists eventually arrived in December 2020, and after an extensive search, users concluded that the song was not played on Musik Für Junge Leute. In January 2021, the community received Der Club and Nachtclub playlists from October and November 1984, and found several songs that Darius and Lydia had taped, including those from the BASF 4|1 tape, leading users to believe the song will show up within the remaining playlists.

In late 2020 Discord user Fliere analysed the tape recording of the song and found a 10 kHz line, which was also present on the other BASF 4|1 songs and some songs on BASF 4|2. This line was discovered to be present on virtually all NDR radio broadcasts at the time, but not on Hilversum radio broadcasts, effectively ruling out the possibility of the song being aired on any station other than NDR.[11]

On November 2, 2021, Lydia posted on Reddit that one of her sons found a box full of tapes that were mostly labeled as "Alles mögliche" (private labeling for all of mixtapes from radios) while renovating in two rooms of her apartment. On one of the tapes, she found a higher quality version of the song. The list of the tape with The Most Mysterious Song was different from previous ones, though it is speculated it's made from the same recording, hearing the same artifacts as the first tape.[12]

Theories

Searchers generally agree that the singer has some sort of European accent, but the specific type is unclear.[2] Some users have theorized that the Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, which was released in late 1983, was used in the leads.[8][13]

Paul Baskerville, who does not remember playing the song,[2] suspects that the song was a demo recording that was played once by an NDR presenter and then thrown away.[14]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0kFN-SArPgM

[norman]

I think I believe the band member who claims he/they recorded it.

The guitar playing of Like the Wind and that other song by the band is a match more than any other aspect, to my ears.


The DX7 discrepancy didn't come up for me until others mentioned it. I listened to Like the Wind twice without 'hearing' a DX7.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

If you're talking about Billy Knight of Statues in Motion, I don't believe him. First time they reached out to the him, asking about this song, he came back with 'never heard of it', and 'sorry I couldn't help'.

Only later did he pipe up trying to claim the song was his own, though he had nothing to back it up. The most glaring discrepancy was he fronted a synth band, producing solely synth music (with synths and drum machine), while Like the Wind was guitar driven rock. Like the Wind did use a synth, but the synth identified didn't come out until two years after Knight said he made the song. The vocals are close, yes, but this song is unlike anything else in their catalogue, and was performed on instruments (lead guitar, base guitar, drums) nowhere near their genre.

It doesn't stack up.

For an in depth look at this claim do check out this vid:

starts at 2min

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=7vC0a1LlSHw

[ExomatrixTV]

"Like the Wind" vs "Blind The Wind" ... Which title is correct?

[palehorse]

It is a demo, I can judge for the quality of the original tape (supposing it is original). I remember Geddy Lee from Rush or it was Jeff Jones I am not sure now.. created many demos specially in the very start of the band.. Rush has songs that were never played for anyone let alone recorded, it was probably put in a box and forgotten in some basement.. now imagine how many artists did that.. Jim Morrison had songs that were found decades after his death, there is many cases out there, but what is intriguing in this case is the fact that nobody knows who recorded the tape.

Nice song by the way, it remember me a bit of Johnny Cash!

My best guess, they will never find the author because one: he may be dead already and two: he doesn't want to be found (not everyone are on it for fame and money, some are for the lulz).

[Johnnycomelately]

Posted by palehorse (here)
It is a demo, I can judge for the quality of the original tape (supposing it is original). I remember Geddy Lee from Rush or it was Jeff Jones I am not sure now.. created many demos specially in the very start of the band.. Rush has songs that were never played for anyone let alone recorded, it was probably put in a box and forgotten in some basement.. now imagine how many artists did that.. Jim Morrison had songs that were found decades after his death, there is many cases out there, but what is intriguing in this case is the fact that nobody knows who recorded the tape.

Nice song by the way, it remember me a bit of Johnny Cash!

My best guess, they will never find the author because one: he may be dead already and two: he doesn't want to be found (not everyone are on it for fame and money, some are for the lulz).

- emphasis mine

“Lulz” lol. I first heard that from Radbod, back on LL. Fits perfectly here.

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by ExomatrixTV (here)
"Like the Wind" vs "Blind The Wind" ... Which title is correct?

The line (from the chorus) is definitely Like the Wind, but it's unknown whether that's the title of the song. 'Blind the Wind' was what the kid wrote on the tape in 1984, probably because that's what he thought he was singing.

Posted by palehorse (here)
It is a demo, I can judge for the quality of the original tape (supposing it is original)

My theory too. A demo. It's just so strange that to this day no one knows who created it.

[palehorse]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)

Posted by ExomatrixTV (here)
"Like the Wind" vs "Blind The Wind" ... Which title is correct?

The line (from the chorus) is definitely Like the Wind, but it's unknown whether that's the title of the song. 'Blind the Wind' was what the kid wrote on the tape in 1984, probably because that's what he thought he was singing.

Posted by palehorse (here)
It is a demo, I can judge for the quality of the original tape (supposing it is original)

My theory too. A demo. It's just so strange that to this day no one knows who created it.

Back then using a magnetized strip of plastic film (a tape) there was no way to keep trace of it, the devices recording it does not had memory so no logs could be kept, if it was recorded officially at some disc record company, which I believe was not the case, then no way to know except for analyzing the voice patterns of the one singing the song, but I guess no one actually took it seriously to try to find out and solve this mystery or if they did it was nobody in their records.

It is a nice mystery yet to be solved!

[Open Minded Dude]

As a youth growing up in the 80s (but also as kid part 70s) and living in Germany I admit I cannot say I ever heard or remember this tune on the radio 1984 or anywhere else. Gives me a bit of the typical 80s goth rock vibes due to the singer's voice.

[triquetra]

How about a full-blown audio Mandela Effect as a possibility? A band that existed only in a parallel timeline, perhaps, but the song made it over to this one somehow?

If we start to try and inquire whether the past has a symmetry of sorts with the future in terms of the obvious "Probability Matrix" of the future, we see there must be some kind of "vanishing point" with respect to a past distant enough that the equivalent number of years into the future would put us hopelessly far into that probability matrix, such that we could not Remotely View that far into the future. There is very much an equivalent symmetry for the past, and we are already finding that to be the case for events in roughly the 1980s and prior.

[Rawhide68]

It reminds me of The Stranglers, or Human leage, not Robert Smith in The Cure.
Probably a demo tape that got trashed for unknown reason, unfortunately.

I have listened to it a couple of times, investigating its origin, with no success, and I like it!

whoo:

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Mystery Solved!

This actually broke over a year ago, but I only just recently found out.

Thanks to one particularly persistent internet sleuth, the internet viral phenomenon that for seventeen long years spawned a thousand rabbit holes, a multitude of youtube videos, wiki pages, subreddits communities, newspaper articles, even a national search on German radio, which turned up nothing, the mystery was finally solved. And it is an incredibly satisfying reveal. Also quite poignant. They were an obscure early eighties German pop band that no one had ever heard of, had no success or recognition in their day, and who went their separate ways decades ago. Today they're back together, reunited after all these years over an internet mystery that had simmered for years that they were completely unaware of, could barely have imagined, all over a song they had recorded long ago and had all but forgotten, but which millions had fallen in love with. Today, they're famous and recognised and appreciated after all. It's a very satisfying and heart-warming end to the story.

They were called FEX, and the song was called Subways of Your Mind.

Perhaps the driving reason this became such a compelling mystery is that the song is good. If at the time it was produced in the UK, was released with proper marketing and premium airplay, there's no doubt in my mind this would have been a hit across Europe. I'm glad it's finally getting the recognition it deserves.

The Professor of Rock himself covered this incredible story and how it was eventually solved

After 41 Yrs-The #1 Song MYSTERY of All-Time Has FINALLY Been SOLVED & It's INSANE-Professor of Rock

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=iWpcvqTCA8g

FEX Reunited. They provided a copy of the original studio recording to prove the song was really theirs.


And FEX have since re-recorded the song!

FEX Official: Subways of your Mind:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=y4dHNvn7LZA

[Moving thread from Unsolved Mysteries to Art & Music. I love me the solving of a good mystery!]

[petra]

Oh my. What a find. That re-recorded one sounds so good!