Subways Of Your Mind

ⓘ This lostwave is classified as unsolved.
The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet
Track list for the song.
Alternative name(s)	Blind The Wind, Like The Wind, "Check It In, Check It Out", "Take It In, Take It Out", The Mysterious Song, TMMSOTI, TMMS, TMS, LTW, BTW
Year	c. 1984
Status	Unsolved; Almost full version available
Original poster	Darius S
Search started	2004
Search community	various (mostly r/TheMysteriousSong)
File:TMS-new 32-bit PCM.wav

The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet (also known as “Like The Wind”, “Blind The Wind”, “Check It In, Check It Out”, “Take It In, Take It Out”, and “The Mysterious Song”) is the name given to an unidentified song, recorded by Darius S. It was recorded sometime around 1983-1984 from the North German radio station "Norddeutscher Rundfunk," or NDR for short.

Origins and Search

Around 1982 to 1984, Darius recorded the song off radio and onto a cassette tape, leaving out DJ chatter, and thus important info, for a cleaner recording. This recording was copied onto several mixtapes, and the original source tape remains lost.

On March 18, 2007, Darius' sister Lydia asked for help, posting the song on the websites best-of-80s.de and Spirit of Radio.

In April 2011, redalfo uploaded the song to his YouTube channel, with title “Unkonow Song - Cancion Desconocida - Track Id.”

In July 2017, the song was uploaded to WatZatSong by user azthriller.

In 2019, Gabriel Pelenson started the search in earnest, posting the song to many Song Identification and investigative subreddits, including r/helpmefind, r/rbi, and r/tipofmytongue, as well as creating a new subreddit r/TheMysteriousSong. Not long after, on July 12th, u/Johnnymetoo posted a complete version of the song, downloaded from one of Lydia's earlier posts before the post was removed.

On July 9th, 2019, Whang! posted the first of many videos about the song on his Tales from the Internet series.

On July 21, 2019, after requests from the song's researchers, Paul Baskerville played the song on his Germand radio program "Nachtclub". This alerted Darius and Lydia to the search, with Lydia joining the subreddit and Discord.

On September 20, 2019, digitizations of the original mixtapes, including cassette tape BASF 4|1 containing TMS, were uploaded to Youtube by plasmalabtv . On December 24th, videos of the digitization process were uploaded to Reddit by Lydia. The recording session was uploaded to YouTube and Google Photos.

On September 24, 2019, The Rolling Stone's David Browne posts the article "The Unsolved Case of the Most Mysterious Song on the Internet."

Searchers eventually got hold of full playlists for multiple NDR broadcasts in 1983-1984; however after combing through these playlists the song couldn't be found.

In late 2020, one of the researchers discovered that the recording had a 10 kHz line, present on most NDR broadcasts of the time, with the exception of Hilversum's broadcasts.

On November 2, 2021, Lydia posted a higher quality copy of the song found on a separate cassette known as "N01". It was in a box of tapes found while she and her son were renovating her apartment.

Darius & Lydia's Mixtapes

We currently know of 3 mixtape cassettes created by Darius and Lydia, containing the song:

• Cassette "BASF 4|1", the first recording widely available on the Internet (audio)
• Cassette "Compilation A", a lower-quality found by Lydia in June, 2020 (audio)
• Cassette "N01", a higher-quality recording found by Lydia on November 1, 2021 (audio)

Key Findings in the Search

Key Milestones:

• Recorded on German Radio: Most likely on NDR Radio in late 1984.
• Initial Search: First queries about the song are posted to Usenet in 2007.
• Full recording: July 12, 2019 - the full song was rediscovered and uploaded.
• Original Poster Located: 2019 - the original seekers, Lydia and her brother Darius, are located.
• Technical Analysis: A distinct 10 kHz line was found in the song's spectrum, typical for 1980s FM broadcasts from NDR Radio, supporting its origin from that radio station. The line was very recently found to be broadcast at exactly 10khz and differences on the frequency found on the tapes are mostly due to tape copying and wear-- this has been helpful in identifying airdates.
• Radio Playlists: Obtaining playlists from NDR radio gave hundreds of pages of bands, and narrowed down potential air dates, but failed to locate the song.
• November 1, 2021: A new tape, with a higher quality version of the song was found by Lydia, and is now on YouTube.
• Possible Air Dates: As of 2024, research points to the likely airdates of September 28, November 28, December 2, or September 17, 1984.
• Current Research: A search is currently underway through the Stasi Archives for any recordings from surveillance data. It's suspected East Germany might have recorded or transcribed the broadcast of the song, given their extensive media monitoring during the Cold War era.

Lyrics

Presumed Lyrics Like the wind,

You came here running'

Take the consequence of livin'

There's no space,

There's no tomorrow,

There's no sense communication

Check it in, check it out, for the sun won't ever shine,

Paranoid anyway, in the subways of your mind,

Like the wind, you're gone in summer, let a smile be your companion

There's no place, and there's no sorrow, hear the young and restless dreamin'

Check it in, check it out, but the sun won't ever shine,

Paranoid anyway, in the subways of your mind,

Check it in, check it out, but the sun won't ever shine,

Paranoid anyway, in the subways of your mind,

Check it in, check it out, it's the summer blues

Check it in, check it out, it's the real excuse

Check it in, check it out, it's the summer blues

Tear it in, tear it out, it's the real excuse

TMS Leads

A constantly changing list of categorized leads can be viewed here.

Major Leads

• Artistic Control
• Blue Light
• Christian Brandl
• Ronnie Urini
• Stasi Archives
• Statues in Motion
• Wild Angels

Notes

The synth in the song is a Yamaha DX7, using several presets, like Syn Lead 5. This means the song couldn't have been released any earlier than 1983.

Brandi and Urini have both tried to claim the song, but an associate of theirs says it sounds nothing like them.

Paul Baskerville thinks it could have been a demo that aired on NDR, but was thrown away afterwards.