The mystery surrounding a long-unknown radio-ripped clip has been solved after nearly 20 years. The song was originally recorded off the radio in Germany and has long stumped internet sleuths and music aficionados. Now, the band behind the internet’s most mysterious song has finally been identified.
The song’s story begins in the 1980s when a group of people in Germany recorded a song they heard on the radio onto a cassette tape. Lydia, also known as bluuely on Reddit, the sister of the person who recorded the cassette, uploaded a digital copy of the song to several online forums in 2007. She wanted to learn anything she could about the song.
Though not confirmed, it is generally believed that the radio station the song was recorded from was NDR1, on the program “Musik Für Junge Leute” — “Music for Young People.” Despite several people stumbling onto Lydia’s posts over the years and trying to help, the details remained scarce. In 2019, the mystery took a turn when a Reddit user known as gabgaskins posted the song in 44 different places, which eventually led to the formation of its own subreddit, r/TheMysteriousSong. The song then caught the attention of a YouTuber called Just Whang, further escalating online interest in the search.
Investigators even tracked down the former host of “Musik Für Junge Leute,” but he wasn’t able to help.
Long-lost song identified via Reddit
Even Rolling Stone covered the story while investigators analyzed different versions of the song from various sources, chasing down dozens of leads.
Unfortunately, enthusiasts were met with dead ends at every turn. Finally, in the past few months, the investigation led to Hörfest, an annual festival of local musicians sponsored by a Hamburg-based public broadcaster. Users compiled a list of hundreds of bands who had played at the festival and started going through them one by one.
This led to Redditor marijin1412 coming across an old newspaper article in a regional German paper. The article was about a band called FEX from Kiel, who won a talent contest in Bremen in 1984, and their music was described as Rock with Wave and Pop influences,” wrote marijin1412. The same user recognized one of the names in the article and reached out to Michael Hädrich, who was a member of a Hörfest 83 band called Phret.
Hädrich sent them some of the songs he made with FEX and Phret — and the mysterious song was among them, titled “Subways of Your Mind.”
Hädrich was astounded to learn the song was famous on the internet and considered a piece of lost media. He contacted the other members of the band and registered the song with GEMA, a German organization for musicians. According to marijin1412, Hädrich says FEX is planning a reunion nearly 20 years after the song became an internet mystery — and almost 40 years since the original recording.
This remarkable discovery marks the end of a long and intriguing journey for music enthusiasts and internet sleuths alike.
April Isaacs is a news contributor for DevX.com She is long-term, self-proclaimed nerd. She loves all things tech and computers and still has her first Dreamcast system. It is lovingly named Joni, after Joni Mitchell.
