German band in global 'mystery song' hunt stunned by late success

Now, they have the answer after a chance discovery by one intrepid researcher, who triumphantly reported his breakthrough on online forum Reddit: it is called "Subways of Your Mind" and was recorded by a little-known 1980s German band called FEX.

The former band members are "absolutely overwhelmed" by the news, 68-year-old Michael Haedrich, who played keyboard and guitar and sang back-up vocals for FEX, told Der Spiegel magazine.

The band had been oblivious to the online phenomenon, he admitted.

The mystery began in 2007, when a German brother and sister uploaded a track online that they had digitised after originally recording it as teenagers on a cassette from the radio.

They asked for help to identify it and audiophiles soon took up the challenge.

The track did not show up in any music databases, but online sleuths tried to work out what instruments could be heard and analysed the lead singer's accent.

Initial attempts to identify the song, soon classified by many as being in the 1980s' "New Wave" genre, yielded little.

It was only when the track was uploaded onto Reddit in 2019 that global interest exploded.

A Reddit subforum called "r/TheMysteriousSong" attracted tens of thousands of members, and the hunt was reported on in German media and beyond.

The big breakthrough finally came earlier this week when a user called "marijn1412" said he had identified the song as "Subways of Your Mind".

He said he came across former FEX members while researching an event for up-and-coming bands that had been organised in the 1980s by a public broadcaster in northern Germany.

The Reddit user wrote that he had reached out to members of what was a four-piece outfit from the northern city of Kiel, who sent him a version of the mystery song, and revealed its long-sought-after name.

Haedrich, who is still a musician, told Spiegel that it was the first time he had heard about the massive search effort.

"I thought it was amazing that someone was interested in music by a band that was only successful regionally, if at all, and that was over 40 years ago," he said.

Haedrich, who lives in Munich, said the band members now want to reissue "Subways of Your Mind" and are trying to track down the original recording of the song.

Their success may have been decades in the making, but he said "for us, it has just come suddenly".