‘Most mysterious song on the internet’ finally identified

A song long called the “Most Mysterious Song on the Internet” has finally been identified. The song in question has been around since at least the 1980s and has been circulating on the Internet since 2007, but no one has been able to debunk its name or origins – until now.

404 Media reports that the song in question is said to come from a radio station in Germany. In 1984, someone recorded the song from the radio there. 404 writes that it is “generally accepted that NDR1 was the radio station and that the program was Musik Für Junge Leute or ‘Music for Young People’.

For reference, the song sounds like this:

Then, in 2007, the sister of the person who recorded the song uploaded it to various internet forums, hoping someone could identify it. Unfortunately, no one did.

Fast forward 12 years: the song is first shared on Reddit. 404 writes that a Redditor named “gabgaskins” has posted the song to “44 different music subreddits.” It later became known as r/TheMysteriousSong. It caused a years-long search for information about the circuit.

Well, it turns out we finally know the name of this mysterious anthem. The name of the song is “Subways Of the Mind” and it is performed by a band known as FEX.

How do we know this?

A Redditor named “marijn1412” appears to have put together the crucial pieces of the puzzle. Marijn1412 said that they somehow came across an old newspaper article from a German newspaper, Nordwest Zeitung, that mentioned the band behind the song.

“The article was about a band called FEX from Kiel, who won a talent show in Bremen in (September) 1984 and their music was described as Rock with Wave and Pop influences,” wrote marijn1412 on the /r/TMS subreddit. “It also featured their members, and I recognized (recognized) one of them from a Hörfest 83 band called Phret.” 404 Media reports that the name of that band member is Michael Hädrich. “I managed to contact him and asked him if he had any old material from those bands. Then he sent me some of the songs he did with FEX and Phret… and lo and behold, one of them was called Subways Of Your Mind,” wrote marijn1412.

There you have it. Another internet mystery solved. A full version of the song has been uploaded to the web via the music platform Vocaroo. You can listen to it here. As always, it’s a blast.