Subways Of Your Mind

ⓘ This lostwave is classified as solved.
Subways Of Your Mind
Demo cassette tape containing the song
Alternative name(s)	Blind The Wind, Like The Wind, "Check It In, Check It Out", "Take It In, Take It Out", The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet, The Mysterious Song; SOYM, CII, CIO, TII, TIO, TMMSOTI, TMMS, TMS, LTW, BTW
Artist(s)	FEX
Genre	Post-punk, New Wave
Year	1983
Status	Solved; Almost full version available
Original poster	Darius S
Search duration	2004 - 2024
Search community	various (mostly r/TheMysteriousSong)
File:TMS-new 32-bit PCM.wav

Subways Of Your Mind (previously known as Like the Wind, The Sun Will Never Shine, Blind the Wind, Check It In, Check It Out, Take It In, Take It Out, and Summer Blues) is a solved new wave/post-punk song recorded by the German new wave band Fex in 1983.

It was recorded in 1984 from the North German radio station "Norddeutscher Rundfunk," or NDR, and was solved on November 4th, 2024 by Reddit user marijn1412.

Background

Origins; 1982-2004

Between 1983 and 1984, Darius S, a teenage music fan from Wilhelmshaven, Germany, taped a radio program on a BASF Chromdioxid II 90 cassette tape from the North German public radio station Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR). The original tape before adding it to any mixtapes included new songs from XTC and the Cure. He believes he recorded the song in 1984 based on the release dates of other songs on the tape and the Technics tape deck he had at the time. The synthesizer used in the song is a Yamaha DX7, which was released in May 1983.

Darius' older sister, Lydia H, bought him a website domain for his birthday in 2004, which he used to raise awareness about the 25 unidentified songs in his personal collection. He then digitized his radio recordings, saving the songs as alif and m4a files, and uploaded them to his website, Unknown Pleasures, which is named after the 1979 album of the same name by English rock band Joy Division.

Early Search; 2007-2009

On March 18th, 2007, Lydia requested assistance by posting the song under the pseudonym "Anton Riedel" on the websites best-of-80s.de and spiritofradio.ca where user Jugge suggested that it sounded like "Statues in Motion" or "Metro Decay".

The song spread around the internet, first posted to WatZatSong on December 17th, 2009 by user Konstantinos.

History

Before Popularity; 2011-2017

On April 16th, 2011, Spanish user Redalfo first uploaded the song to YouTube.

The search received a surge of popularity in 2017, with it being reuploaded several times to WatZatSong that year and on September 17th, 2017, the Spanish independent record label Dead Wax Records uploaded Anton's snippet of the song to YouTube, which would catch the attention of the person who would finally bring the search to mainstream attention.

Popularity; 2019-2024

From April 20th to June 29th, 2019, Gabriel da Silva Vieira, a 16-year-old from São Paulo, Brazil, posted the song 44 times on various subreddits with the title "THE MOST MYSTERIOUS SONG ON THE INTERNET!"., eventually forming his own subreddit for the song on June 30th, 2019. User newacountz quickly discovered Lydia's original uploads of the song, scrolling through the post history and determining that the uploader recorded it from the NDR2 radio station, most likely off the program Musik für junge Leute (Music for young People). They also discovered NDR presenters Peter Urban and Paul Baskerville. Paul was focused on because he spoke English and was known for playing completely unknown independent new wave music.

On July 9th, 2019, popular YouTuber Justin Whang discussed the search for the song on an episode of his YouTube series called Tales From the Internet. The next day, after searchers posted on the r/germany subreddit, a user named johnnymetoo claimed to have downloaded the full version of the song from Lydia's UseNet post, uploading it to r/TheMysteriousSong two days later. On July 21st, 2019, Paul Baskerville aired the song on his radio program "Nachtclub" after requests from the song's rapidly growing search team. On August 20th, 2019, Radio1 interviewed Paul Baskerville and played the song on the air, which alerted Darius and Lydia to the search, with Lydia joining the subreddit and Discord the next day.

On September 22nd, 2019, Lydia uploaded the first known tape of the song, known as BASF 4|1, to wetransfer.com., containing songs from the United States, United Kingdom, Scotland, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands ranging from 1982 to 1984. Numerous mainstream news publications began covering the story at this time, the first being Rolling Stone on September 24th, 2019.

On June 26th, 2020, Lydia uploaded a mixtape containing the song, known as Compilation A, which had the song in lower quality than the previous tape

On July 9th, 2020, reddit user u/FlexxonMobil received a list of every song Paul Baskerville played on Musik für Junge Leute from 1982 to 1984, but after searching through the available playlists, the song could not be found, even after receiving the partial 1984 playlists from other shows including Der Club and Nachtclub. Through this, searchers were able to estimate that the song aired in September or November 1984 based on several discovered playlists containing songs Darius had to have recorded during that time period. There are still several missing Nachtclub and Der Club playlists that could contain the song, spanning August to October 1984.

On December 22nd, 2020, user fliere discovered a 10 kHz line in the song via spectrogram analysis, which was present on NDR broadcasts at the time. It is also confirmed that the 10 kHz modulation scheme was only used by NDR, because Darius recorded from other stations, like Hilversum, which did not have the 10 kHz line, effectively ruling out the possibility of the song being aired on any station other than NDR.

On November 7th, 2021, Lydia posted the final mixtape known as N01, which contains the highest quality version of the song, after discovering it in a box of tapes while renovating her apartment with her son.

On April 3rd, 2024, reddit user Successful-Bread-347 discovered that the Stasi, a German government agency that managed the archives of the former German Democratic Republic and kept an enormous amount of data on life in Germany, may have archived information about some NDR shows. As of July 25th, 2024, the archives are still being searched through.

On July 18th, 2024, the search team discovered that NDR held an event called Hörfest, which was a competition designed to promote new bands and was held in September 1984, matching the likely recording date of the song. Additionally, the Hörfest broadcast aired in Lower Saxony, where Darius and Lydia lived at the time of the recording, on November 28th, 1984, and it was previously suggested that the song was most likely played on this date based on the other songs on Darius' tapes.

On August 1st, 2024, Discord user Beko discovered information that the festival involved a person named Uwe Sandhop, who was also a bassist that played in five different obscure bands, and potentially has a song registered under his name in the GEMA database from May 1984 called "Like The Wind", though its details are incomplete and only lists the artists first name. However, this was debunked on August 4th, 2024, when the owner of the GEMA listing, Uwe, was contacted and confirmed that he did not create the song.

Discovery

In late October 2024, Reddit user marijn1412 discovered an old newspaper article about a band from Kiel, Germany called FEX, who won a talent contest in Bremen in 1984. They recognized one of the band members, Michael Hädrich, from a band called Phret, who played at Hörfest 1983.

After contacting Hädrich and asking for songs they recorded with Fex, they sent a 3-song demo tape containing an alternate more-complete version of the song, fully identifying it as "Subways Of Your Mind" by Fex. The band also registered the song with the GEMA music database and sent Discord user damn peggy a live version recorded at the Roxi Paderborn on May 25th, 1985, confirming the authenticity of the recording.

Lyrics

Presumed Lyrics (Verse 1)

Like the wind

You came here running'

Take the consequence of livin'

There's no space

There's no tomorrow

There's no sense for communication

(Chorus)

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

Paranoid anyway, in the subways of your mind

(Verse 2)

Like the wind

Blowing from somewhere

Let a smile be your companion

There's no place, and there's no sorrow

In the young and restless dreamer

(Chorus)

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

Paranoid anyway, in the subways of your mind

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

Paranoid anyway, in the subways of your mind

(Outro)

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

Tear it in, tear 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

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

Tear it in, tear 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

Leads

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

Major Leads

• Hörfest
• Stasi Archives

Key Milestones

Personnel

• Ture Rückwardt – vocals, guitar
• Michael Hädrich – keyboards
• Norbert Ziermann – bass
• Hans Sievers – drums

References

• Lead Document
• Playlist Analysis