The most mysterious song on the Internet finally has a title, the one that thousands of fans have been trying to identify since 2017. It's a new wave song, which was recorded by a German radio in the early 80s. Is called Subways of Your Mind and it's played by Fex. Reddit user Marijn1412 discovered this. A Fex member told the German newspaper Tz that the song is actually theirs. There is already air of a reunion to re-record it.
The hunt for the mysterious song began with a music enthusiast named Darius S. from Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Like many, in the 80s he used to listen to the radio and record the songs he liked on cassette. One of these tapes, the so-called cassette number 4, contained mainly 1984 releases from bands such as XTC and The Cure. There was also a lesser-known piece that he liked and knew nothing about. «It was just one of the many songs I had recorded without knowing who it was by. Maybe I didn't hear the DJ's launch or I only heard part of it, missing the artist's name. Anything can be.”
In 2007, Darius' sister Lydia digitized and uploaded a fragment of the track to the Internet. Over the next 12 years, the song bounced around the web without ever being identified. In 2019, a 16-year-old from Sao Paulo, Brazil, came across the piece and uploaded it to YouTube and several Subreddits, helping make the search for the song's title and author go viral. Most Mysterious Song on the Internet.
Marijn1412, the user who identified Subways of Your Mindhe explained in a post that he began to understand something about it after reading an old article about Fex (who were from Kiel, Germany) that he came across while searching for information about bands that had played at an annual event called Hörfest. He contacted one of the members of Fex and asked him if he still had any old recordings, «and, surprise, there was a song called Subways of Your Mind», although in a «slightly different version from the one we know».
«After explaining to him via email that that was a very famous lost song, he asked me not to talk about it publicly again, he first wanted to consult with the other members of the old band. In the meantime, the song has been deposited at Gema (the German equivalent of Siae, ed) and people started to notice. But I'm happy that the members of the group decided to let me make the announcement.”
At the same time as Marijn1412's revelation, Michael Hädrich of Fex (who played keyboards and guitar and did backing vocals) spoke about the discovery with the German newspaper Tzconfirming the story. To prove the song's authorship, the band is in possession of recordings of Subways of Your Mind both in the studio and in the rehearsal room, and live recordings of at least two shows where the song was played, as well as statements from the members and their old agent who was present in the studio. And then there is the “unmistakable voice of the singer”.
After being contacted by Marijn1412, Hädrich reached out to his old bandmates, bassist Norbert Ziermann and guitarist/vocalist Ture Rückwart, who are still working in the music business (he has, however, lost contact with drummer Hans Siever). “We were all very surprised and amazed by the really nice comments and messages.” Rückwart would be credited with having had the basic idea of the song, which the band then elaborated in the rehearsal room. «It was one of the strong pieces of our repertoire».
As for the future, Hädrich said he is about to leave Munich (where he now lives) for Kiel, where he will meet with Ziermann and Rückwart to define a plan. They are “all excited about the idea of rerecording the song, along with a second one.” They are also thinking of shooting a video for Subways (Hädrich's daughter said they might schedule an r/AMA session on Reddit soon).
2024 has been a year of grace in the field of identifying “lost” songs. In April, the case of a viral “lost wave” song known as was solved EveryoneKnowsThat (which has held listeners in check since 2012, when a 17-second fragment of it was uploaded to the WatZatSong forum), just because someone was watching 80s porn. The piece has been officially identified as Further Motives by Christopher Saint Booth and Philip Adrian Booth. He had appeared in the adult film Angels of Passion from 1986.
From Rolling Stone US.
