As known as, “The most mysterious song on the internet.”
It’s a search that went on for almost 17 years… on the internet. Interest in the search goes back as far as 1983, long before the days of internet discussion, or even the vague idea of lost media was in the general zeitgeist.
Similar to the likes of “Everyone Knows That,” another well known “lost” song, it began with a snippet of a song being uploaded to the internet. In this case, "Subways of Your Mind" (or “Like The Wind” as it was referred to often during the search) was uploaded as a grainy snippet in 2007 by two siblings, Lydia and Darius.
It was a recording of a radio station, reportedly in 1983. In 2004, Lydia bought Darius a website domain, where “Like The Wind” would soon be uploaded.
According to Darius’ word in the Rolling Stone, he claimed he didn’t know where “Like The Wind” even emerged from, considering it was from his own personal collection of tapes that he recorded off of a German radio station years ago, NDR 1., from a program that translated to “Music For Young People.”
For a while, Darius hung onto the tapes. He wasn’t even certain that he recorded the sought after song on NDR 1 to begin with.
Eventually, Lydia got hold of the tapes after Darius possessed them for two whole decades. In 2007, Lydia (or under the handles of “Anton Ridel” or “bluuue”) posted the snippet of the song onto a few sites, hoping for someone to figure out and help them in the search for the full song.
One of the sites would be spiritofradio.ca, where under the unknown song search section, Lydia under the name “bluuue” would post the snippet. At 1:14 minutes, cut down due to copyright concerns, “Like The Wind” would be posted online.
Alongside spiritofradio, “Like The Wind” would be posted to websites like WatZatSong (2009) and Youtube (2011) by people who’ve also grown curious about this song.
Soon, another Youtube upload would resurface, posted by the record label “Dead Wax Records.”
Many would reupload the excerpt in order to reinstall interest in the search, since before a subreddit could be formed around the song, people would just reupload the clips.
Eventually, a Youtube channel dedicated to finding the song, simply called “THE MOST MYSTERIOUS SONG ON THE INTERNET” would reupload the 1:15 second clip, and make the subreddit for it.
The song went by many names. “Like The Wind” was the most common, but there were others like “Check It In, Check It Out,” or “Sun Will Never Shine,” based on the recurring lyrics in the initial clip. However, many would just refer to it as “the most mysterious song on the internet.”
The search itself would be long, draining, and often hit periods of time where no new leads or information would come out, leaving the case running cold until someone comes up with something about the search.
At first, people would try to nail down the singer’s accent, since it was said to originate from a German radio station. Yet many couldn’t pinpoint it.
Was it German? Or was it Swedish? French? Was it even real? The lyrics had hints of broken English in there, so what is it?
Furthermore, what genre would this be classified as? In the original tapes Darius reportedly recorded this on, it was lumped in with various new wave and post-punk bands, such as XTC and The Cure. The fact it was reportedly recorded back in the 1980’s also narrowed things down, but not by much.
People also had the unique keyboard and synthesizer the artists supposedly used, a Yamahah DX7, by narrowing down the release date of the song to 1984.
People had attempted to search various copyright databases like GEMA to see if “Like The Wind” or “Sun Will Never Shine” would show up, but not much luck. Some would try to reach out to the DJ for “Music For Young People” in the 80’s, when “Like The Wind” would supposedly play during, only for him to not remember ever playing it.
Soon, news sites would get a hold of the story, alongside the greater internet community. Various Youtubers would report on the progress of the search, while news sites would even make speculation about the search themselves.
One notorious case is that of one German news site, claiming that “Like The Wind” was the work of the duo Christian Brandl and Ronnie Urini.
While the lead singer, Christian, couldn’t be contacted (nor alive) for questioning, Ronnie was. So, he came forward.
And it wasn’t great.
He reportedly told Die Presse about how he allegedly wrote and recorded the song. However, any evidence that could’ve been unearthed, like the written lyrics or even sheet music “ended up in the recycling bin.”
Ronnie’s credibility already has a reputation of being controversial and unreliable. What really stood out was how he claimed the clips posted online from bluuue (Lydia), which have been online since 2007 at that point, were “AI forgery” and not wanting any more involvement with the case.
So, the biggest lead turns out to not be the most credible. What else was there?
Many people were still trying to figure it out. Again, there were many points where the case would grow cold, not having any good ideas or even a sign of a lead, so the next few years, the most mysterious song on the internet would keep its mystery.
Until it didn’t.
In November of 2024, a Reddit user by the name of u/marijn1412 would claim what the source of “Like The Wind” was: German band FEX from Kiel, and their song “Subways Of Your Mind.”
This came from them searching through bands from German music festival “Hörfest,” which specializes in highlighting smaller, less well-known artists.
According to mixmag, u/marjin1412 went on record saying the following:
“After I emailed him back that the song is actually quite a famous 'lost song,' he asked me not to go public with it until he spoke with his old band members. In the meantime, though, the song did get registered at GEMA and people found out about it. But I'm happy to say that the band members agreed for me to go public with it."
And public it went. The news caught on like wildfire.
Many news sites picked up the news and covered it. One, NDR, covered the return of the band in order to remaster not only “Subways of Your Mind,” but also their other songs, those being “Heart In Danger” and “Talking Hands.”
Interestingly enough, Michael Hädrich, one of the vocalists for FEX, was completely out of the loop of his band's work being so sought after online.
On NDR, Michael stated, “The fact that it was sought after for so long, of course, stunned me.” This was followed up with, later in the article, ideas of remastering the tracks, which would soon happen and be put up on streaming in their entirety.
For 17 years, this song was being sought after. People dug up bands from countries that could replicate such an accent, searched for whatever bands could’ve been underground in 1984 in Germany, all for a song from a band that hasn’t been active since 1985 before people wanted their song.
Well, the “most mysterious song on the internet” is no longer mysterious. It’s a little 1984 new-wave gem from Kiel, Germany.
Hopefully, this song isn’t gone like the wind again.
