The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet
You might remember it as Like the Wind, Subways of Your Mind
Latest viral9 of 24
2019·The platform era·nostalgic
A song taped off German radio in the 1980s that nobody could identify, and that thousands of strangers spent seventeen years chasing.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- Like the Wind
- Spread in
- 2019
- Began as
- A sound recording
- Where it started
- broadcast
- Format
- Sound
- Original title
- Subways of Your Mind, by the band Fex, from Kiel
- Recorded
- Taped from a programme on the German broadcaster NDR, probably in early September 1984
- Origin
- Not an upload originally
- Available
- Playable from the source
What this wasThe story
A cassette recording, made from a Northern German radio broadcast around 1984, of a new-wave song with an unmistakable hook and no known artist or title. It was uploaded in 2007. Nobody could name it. From 2019 the search became a collective effort across Reddit and Discord, and volunteers went through station playlists, German band directories, record fairs and archives.
On 4 November 2024 a Reddit user identified it as "Subways of Your Mind" by Fex, a band from Kiel, confirmed by a 1985 EP and a live recording. The band members were traced and found to have had no idea. In January 2025 the daughter of the band's keyboardist posted to the community her father had unknowingly kept waiting.
Why it matteredWhat changed
A song taped off German radio in 1984 went unidentified for forty years, seventeen of them in public, and was solved by a volunteer who found a band member’s name in an old newspaper article.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Darius S., a teenager in Wilhelmshaven, tapes a song off the radio without catching its name.1
- Posted
A recording from the cassette is uploaded online and his sister, Lydia, begins asking on Usenet whether anybody recognises it.1
- Took off
Gabriel Pelenson uploads an excerpt to YouTube and founds the subreddit r/TheMysteriousSong.1
- Picked up
The NDR presenter Paul Baskerville plays the song on his programme Nachtclub.1
- Found
A Reddit user identifies it as Subways of Your Mind by Fex. The lead is a band member’s name in a local newspaper article about a music festival.1
- Later
The band releases a studio version officially.1
- Later
The band releases a music video for the song.1
The version you rememberNot the same thing
A tape of a radio broadcast, the only form anybody had heard the song in for forty years.1
A studio version was on an EP in 1985. The version taped off the radio was a different recording, and a cassette copy of it surfaced in January 2025.1
What people misrememberSet straight
Commonly remembered asIt is called The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet.
ActuallyThat was the name the search gave it. The song is Subways of Your Mind.1
More from hereIn this collection
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · a moment that changed what the internet did next · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
This began as a recording of sound, not as a video. Originally published on broadcast. The version shown here is an official copy on YouTube, published by a rights holder.
Where it came fromWhat we know
There is no original upload to identify: this did not begin as one. What it began as is recorded here, and what is shown is a later copy.
View the official copy on YouTube
Nothing here is claimed to be the first publication of this Moment, because the first publication was not an upload. This began as a recording of sound, not as a video. Originally published on broadcast.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things