Lost media is classified as when someone recalls seeing or hearing a piece of media that they can’t find anymore, sparking a search for that piece and determining its status of missing, found, forever lost, or a hoax. All of these statuses are possible when investigating lost media, but one investigation that has recently caught my attention is into a lost song that puzzled the internet for 17 whole years before being found in November of 2024. The investigation was popular enough to where people use the song in modern media to this day, namely in the recent horror film Black Phone 2, and the music video produced for its remaster even had the main person who started it all star in a small role.
To recap what was said by The Verge, a site dedicated to technology, entertainment, and science, “Subways of Your Mind” by Fex, a German new wave band, was recorded in 1984 and released in 1985. For a while, the song was simply known as “Blind the Wind” based on a radio listing created by an individual named Darius S., who taped songs played on a German radio station broadcast onto a mixtape like the one below. However, there was no artist listed on the tape. According to the Braunschweiger Zeitung’s article, Darius had also purposely removed dialogue from radio hosts, hence why the song title, artist, and exact airplay date had been left unknown.
Darius had an older sister, Lydia H., who bought him a website domain as a birthday gift in 2004, and he used it to raise awareness for unidentified music like “Blind the Wind.” He digitized his recordings and uploaded them to the website. Soon, Lydia got involved in the search, too, posting a 75-second clip of “Blind the Wind” to multiple sites before others put it on WatZatSong in 2009 and YouTube in 2011, where it would gain even more attention. What was this song and who was it by?
In 2017, Spanish indie record label Dead Wax Records also uploaded the excerpt to their YouTube channel, and Gabriel Pelenson, a friend of the label’s owner, was so invested in the mystery that he uploaded it to his own YouTube channel, as well as several Reddit communities related to music. Eventually, Pelenson founded r/TheMysteriousSong, aptly named after the title the song held for the longest time: “The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet.” Those searching for the song contacted multiple individuals with possible leads, from English radio DJ Paul Baskerville to German organization GEMA to the YouTube channel “80zforever,” but no new leads were found. However, the popularity did get Darius and Lydia involved with the investigation with the latter eventually joining the Subreddit. As noted by Spontis, the two actually had no idea that the search gained so much popularity over the years and that other people were looking for the same song they were until now.
By the late 2010s, the mysterious song search community came to the consensus that the singer had some kind of European accent, a Yamaha DX7 synthesizer was a dominant instrument in the snippet, and that the song was recorded in 1984, based on Darius’ tracklist. Paul Baskerville, who reportedly didn’t remember playing the song, speculated that the song was a demo recording that was thrown out after being played only once by a radio presenter. An article from Plattentests.de about the song was published in 2021, talking about the theory that the song was “Like the Wind” by Viennese singer and drummer Christian Brandl and Ronnie Urini in 1983. The organization questioned every member save for Brandl due to the fact that he’s been dead since 1987. But it was quickly put to rest by Robert Wolf, the frontman of their band Chuzpe, who deconfirmed it by saying that he didn’t recognize Brandl’s voice. Urini also stated his thoughts on the matter, saying he didn’t think the drums in the song were of his making, and that he thought the recordings were created by AI and wanted nothing more to do with the investigation, going as far as saying that the song meant nothing to him at first until he listened to it. However, the article also states that Urini had a poor memory at his old age and that all his claims aren’t always consistent, so his accounts of the song were questionable.
On November 4, 2024, the Reddit user “u/marijn1412” had identified the song as “Subways of Your Mind” by Fex after researching an event called Hörfest, in which indie music artists showcase their work. (Link to post here) The Reddit user contacted a band member who was listed in an article from nwzonline.de. u/marijn1412 claimed that the band member confirmed that Fex was the artist responsible for the song, and that the band was going to re-release it now that it was discovered. This catchy tune is still relevant in the modern day, as on October 1 a music video with remastered audio was released and actually featured a cameo from Darius. The song was also featured in the 2025 horror movie Black Phone 2. The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet was finally found and can be enjoyed by audiences once again.
If this story proved anything, it was that anything with evidence of its existence can be found with the right amount of dedication, awareness, and patience. Maybe it teaches us to put effort into our daily lives and the hard work will pay off, like with these searches.
You can listen to the remastered version of Subways of Your Mind here!
