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The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

You might remember it as Like the Wind, Subways of Your Mind

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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
Format
Sound
Era
The platform era
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

  1. Made

    Darius S., a teenager in Wilhelmshaven, tapes a song off the radio without catching its name.1

  2. Posted

    A recording from the cassette is uploaded online and his sister, Lydia, begins asking on Usenet whether anybody recognises it.1

  3. Took off

    Gabriel Pelenson uploads an excerpt to YouTube and founds the subreddit r/TheMysteriousSong.1

  4. Picked up

    The NDR presenter Paul Baskerville plays the song on his programme Nachtclub.1

  5. 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

  6. Later

    The band releases a studio version officially.1

  7. Later

    The band releases a music video for the song.1

The version you rememberNot the same thing

The version people rememberA cassette recording

A tape of a radio broadcast, the only form anybody had heard the song in for forty years.1

The originalSubways of Your Mind, by Fex

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

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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

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.

Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.

SourcesWhat was read

  1. Wikipedia — The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

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

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