The 17-Year Hunt For The ‘Internet’s Most Mysterious Song’ Ends With An Unbelievable Discovery

A global mystery has been solved—and it only took almost two decades.

Jesse

• Published in Interesting
• November 12, 2024

The internet is a strange place where the trivial and the monumental coexist, and sometimes, a quest starts that takes on a life of its own. The story of “the most mysterious song on the internet” definitely falls into the latter category.

For seventeen long years, it was the holy grail of lost music. Audiophiles, casual listeners, and dedicated detectives scoured every corner of the web, combed through databases, and dissected every musical note, all in the hope of putting a name to the mystical tune. 

It was a song that had haunted countless people since 2007 when a German brother and sister uploaded a track they had recorded from the radio as teenagers. The track featured popular bands like The Cure and XTC, but one song stood out like a riddle that refused to be solved.

Fast-forward to today and the mystery has been cracked wide open. Thanks to a spirited Reddit user known as "marijn1412," the song was finally identified as Subways of Your Mind—and it was performed by a little-known 1980s German band named FEX. 

Predictably, the reveal was as electrifying as it was unexpected. And the best part? The members of FEX were blissfully unaware of the epic global hunt that revolved around their song for nearly two decades.

Subways Of Your Mind by FEX.

The journey of this internet enigma began when the siblings first uploaded the cassette recording of the song. It didn’t show up in any music databases, leading many to believe it was an obscure New Wave track from the '80s.

Things took a dramatic turn when the song found its way to Reddit in 2019. The r/TheMysteriousSong subreddit exploded with activity, drawing tens of thousands of members from around the globe, and suddenly, the search was a worldwide mission. 

This unknown song became the internet’s new white whale. The global attention even spilled into news outlets and drew in music detectives from every corner; sadly, all attempts to find the track remained futile.

Just when it seemed like the mystery might remain unsolved forever, a breakthrough surfaced thanks to marijn1412. While researching a 1980s event for up-and-coming bands, the amateur sleuth unearthed a clue. 

This led him to reach out to FEX—a four-piece band from Kiel, Germany, whose music never made it far beyond regional fame. When marijn1412 contacted the former members, one of them, 68-year-old Michael Haedrich, confirmed that the song was indeed theirs. 

It was titled Subways of Your Mind and had been hiding in plain sight all these years. The former keyboardist and guitarist for FEX told Der Spiegel, “I thought it was amazing that someone was interested in music by a band that was only successful regionally, if at all, and that was over 40 years ago.” 

Now, with newfound attention, FEX plans to reissue Subways of Your Mind and is working to locate the original recording. For Haedrich and his bandmates, success came at a snail’s pace, but when it arrived, it hit like lightning. 

This 40-year-old tune finally found its audience, proving that no song is ever truly forgotten, not when the internet decides it’s worth finding.

Jesse