Your Eyes
ⓘ This lostwave is classified as unsolved. | |
| Your Eyes | |
| |
| Alternative name(s) | Come Back 2 Me |
|---|---|
| Genre | Italodance |
| Year | 2003 |
| Original poster | DaRioXYK |
| Search started | December 22nd 2009 |
Your Eyes or Come Back 2 Me is an unknown italodance song, supposedly dating back to the early 2000s. The song has spent the majority of its life on the Chinese side of the Internet.
Background
Your Eyes originated in 2003, on a since defunct Chinese music website. As music was often shared via P2P services such as Kazaa or LimeWire in this time period, the song was uploaded to many websites, such as 666c.com, or real2000.org. Your Eyes appeared on a compilation, created by an at-the-time unknown DJ. The album cover's filename is "DjFengkuang.jpg.", possibly the creator of the compilation, and Your Eyes is titled 新歌热舞 专辑 359. This roughly translates to Hot New Dance Song Album 359. The file containing Your Eyes was named 欧美抒情高档 Pop, which translates to European and American lyrics high-end Pop. There were no indications of an artist, title or even county of origin within this file or the compilation.
The compilation is in itself mysterious since many of the songs on it are Eurodance hits, possibly from Italy, but seem to originate on the Chinese web. It has been alleged that there are other mysterious songs on the compilation but at present, there is no notable search for these songs. Analysis of the original upload of Your Eyes by user JayRidders on reddit proved that this recording has a PAL encoding, meaning it was recorded from a colour TV in a region that includes China (as well as Australia, India and parts of East Africa).
According to Reddit user SignificanceNo4643, the synthesizer used in the song is a 2003 Casio Privia, which is more popular in the Asian market than it was in Europe.
Around 2004, the song was being widely shared on Chinese file sharing websites such as hcdj.com and QQMusic.com. This version of the file has become known as the "Low Quality Version".
Rediscovery
In 2009, DaRioXYK posted the song to Youtube with the title "unknown italodance", not specifing where he got the song from.
There is evidence that the search for Your Eyes was ongoing into the early 2010s, as another channel called Music Productions uploaded a track called "Radio Rise" by Mystic Moment in 2013. Music Productions said they found the song in 2001 and uploaded it without credit to protect the artist's privacy. Some have labeled this as a hoax, however, AllTheLyrics forum posts from 2011 show that the name Mystic Moment "Radio Rise" had been circulating before the upload, meaning the 2013 video could have used this thread as a source for the title. In the comments, an Italian DJ called FD440 claimed the song.
In the mid 2010s, a discogs page was discovered for an artist called Gabry-L with a track called "Your Eyes (Come Back 2 Me)". The voracity of this page has been somewhat corrupted by the later search. However, this song gave the community the common placeholder name for the track and in 2014, the unknown song was uploaded under the name from the Discogs page.
In 2019, the song was remixed by DJ JPedroza, who credited an artist under the name MCW as the creator of the track. MCW was investigated and turned out to be Michael Waust, who said he only collaborated on the remix with DJ Pedroza.
The search for Your Eyes had picked up speed by this point due to the influx of interest in Lostwave and a common suggestion raised was that the song could be Jungle Eyes by The Test ft. Rodger, a song with evidence it existed but no versions uploaded. This lead was ruled out after users obtained and listened to the track.
2020 High Quality Upload
On April 4th 2020, the full track of the "Low Quality Version" was uploaded to Youtube by Johnson Paul, titled "Identify Italodance". This version had the full intro of the song, which was cut off from previous uploads. A commenter on the video suggested that this was a different mix of the song completely, said that all versions of the song circulating were low quality versions and claimed the name of the DJ that created the Chinese compilation could be heard in a kind of watermark. The consensus reached was that 3 different versions had been uploaded to QQMusic.com, all actually discovered to be the same, low quality mix, but they had long since been taken down.
On the same day, Aigeng uploaded a version of the intro of Your Eyes onto a mix of italodance recorded off the radio, with the watermark of the DJ clearly audible. The rest of the song was cut off but the intro was in much higher quality than had ever been posted before. It became clear that Aigeng didn’t know the song title but the description suggested it had been broadcasted from Italodance World.
A new lead relating to the song "Angel Eyes" by Che JT was discussed, as like previous candidates, the song was released (by DIY Records) and had credible evidence of it's existence but no recording had surfaced online. Che JT was suspected to be Che JianTao, who when contacted, said they had no knowledge of this song. To make things more complicated, a user uploaded Your Eyes under the name "Angel Eyes" by Che JT but used the album cover of Gabry-L's "Your Eyes (Come Back to Me)". This was added to the discogs page for the song, massively confusing the search.
On May 8th of 2020, a full radio edit of a "High Quality Upload" was posted to Youtube by Mike B. Mike B had made the edit himself but reposted the full "High Quality Version" to Youtube, saying the file had been renamed so he didnt know the original artist or title. Sometime after this, the video was privated or deleted.
C. W. Schultz Investigation
In 2019, C.W. Schultz uploaded the Top Ten Most Mysterious Songs, where they put Your Eyes at number 6. Schultz explained what was known of the mystery up to that point. In 2020, they followed up on the mystery in Mysterious Music Episode 3 - Updates. Schultz had investigated the Gabry-L lead and reached out to the parent company of the record label that produced the disk, but they hadn't confirmed anything.
A more promising avenue of investigation was that Gabry-L had been featured on a track by TY1, an italodance artist. The two had created a track called "Phoenix" but when Schultz reached out there was no response. These leads have been reached out to as much as possible and the community has strongly advised not to contact them anymore.
At the end of the segment on Your Eyes, Schultz mentions looking into the Mystic Moments lead and suggests they are following up on private leads that were not disclosed in the video. This suggests the artist may not want to be found, backed up by how both Music Productions and Aigeng said they wanted to preserve the artist's privacy.
2021 Investigation
In 2021, the aforementioned Chinese compilation was rediscovered. The full thing was uploaded to Soundcloud.
A new lead was discussed after a GEMA entry for an Italodance song called "I Need You" by Pietro Bertini, Stefano Mattara, and Luca Verzeletti was found. This lead was ruled out and it appears the song may actually be called "I Want You".
Current Investigation
After the discovery of the Chinese Compilation, a key lead is the DJ who created it. There are suggestions that this may be the same DJ as the one who is named in the watermark on Aigeng's upload. A Youtube comment on the video suggests that the DJ in the watermark is DJ BPM. The DJ from the filename, DjFengkuang, also is a possible candidate.
The clip was uploaded in much higher quality by the FM120 chanel, however, the OP wrote in the description in relation to the intro of Your Eyes:
"The most rare vinyl record from the entire network - Track 1(135 bpm) is the sample from the vinyl. DO NOT ask me about Radio Rise / Jungle Eyes / Your Eyes (Come Back 2 Me), or I would think you don't know dance music at all... @DJ BPM"
-FM120
Some have speculated this implies FM120 doesn't know the name of the song, however, the FM120 chanel has a reputation for protecting the names of rare italodance songs as well.
The FM120 channel was discovered to be a collaboration between Aigeng and DJ BPM. It is unknown whether more people are involved with this project.
In 2024, reddit user ACrateOfAle looked into DJ FD440 from the the Allthelyrics post and discovered they had a Youtube account with some playlists but no more leads were discovered.
Other leads include searching the SIAE database and trying to find "Angel Eyes" by Che JT to definitively rule the song out.
On September 2nd, 2022, user ItaloBoy DJ uploaded a recording of Your Eyes being played from a cassette, which he claimed was recorded in the summer of 2001 on Radio Versilia.
The song was discovered once again in several more Italodance megamixes, including one posted by user papaotaker on August 13th, 2022 and another posted by user SandoPlayz16 on May 12th, 2024, which claimed to be from FM120.
Possibility the Artist May Not Want to be Found
There is some evidence that suggests that the artist behind the song may not want to be discovered. Both Music Productions and Aigeng suggested the artist wanted to protect their privacy and C.W. Schultz deliberately did not disclose leads for this reason as well. The cryptic message posted in the description of the FM120 may imply this as well.
The fact the artist may want to preserve their privacy raises ethical questions about the extent to which the search for this lost song can be conducted.