History Music / TheMostMysteriousSongOnTheInternet

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song which, for a while, was only available from a 17-second clip.[[note]] which turned out to have originated from a 1986 adult film called ''Angels of Passion''. The song was discovered to have been titled ''Ulterior Motives.''[[/note]]

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song which, for a while, was only available from a 17-second clip[[note]] which turned out to have originated from a 1986 adult film called ''Angels of Passion''. The song was discovered to have been titled ''Ulterior Motives.''[[/note]].

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song which, for a while, was only available from a 17-second clip[[note]] which turned out to have originated from a 1986 adult film called ''Angels of Passion''. The song was discovered to have been titled ''Ulterior Motives.''[[/note]]

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song which, for a while, was only available from a 17-second clip, which turned out to have originated from a 1986 adult film called ''Angels of Passion''. The song was discovered to have been titled ''Ulterior Motives.''

''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPGf4liO-KQ The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet]]'' [[note]]frequently shortened to TMMSOTI or simply TMS[[/note]] is the popular name for a song belonging to the [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and/or PostPunk genres. It was first uploaded to several "name that song" websites in 2007 by an "Anton Riedel," who claimed to have heard it on [[UsefulNotes/WestGermany West German]] radio sometime in the [[TheEighties early-to-mid-1980s]]. '''

Originally uploaded under by [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PenName Anton]][[note]]A pseudonym used by Lydia, sister of the person who originally caught it on tape, Darius; she has another pseudonym as bluue[[/note]] to several song seeking forums in the early 2000's, the song went unidentified and lost interest... until 2019, when a Reddit user, Gabriel Vieira [[note]]full name, Gabriel da Silva Vieira[[/note]] posted on various [[Website/{{Reddit}} subreddits,]] asking if anyone knew about this song.

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song formerly only available from a 17-second clip available, [[spoiler:originating from a 1986 adult film called ''Angels of Passion'', titled ''Ulterior Motives.'']]

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song performed by an unknown artist, with only a 17-second clip available.

YouTuber Justin Whang uploaded a video in his series,''WebVideo/TalesFromTheInternet'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90JvgNQicp0 on July 9, 2019,]] about TMS.[[note]]he has since made four follow-up episodes covering the ongoing saga[[/note]]

* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: The odd phraseology of some of the (putative) lyrics ("consequence of living", "sense of communication") point to them being written by a non-English speaker who's trying to emulate the British PostPunk lyrical style by using words that fit the song's meter and sound good.
* BreakUpSong: One of the most common (and straightforward) interpretations of the song is that it's about a breakup, as most of the lyrics imply some sort of finality ("the consequence of living/leaving", "there's no tomorrow", "the sun won't ever/will never shine").

* NewWaveMusic: Although sometimes called this, it's more often described as belonging to its close cousin, Post-Punk. See below.
* {{Overcrank}}: One Redditor has theorized that the circulating version might be pitched down too low (through some combination of the original broadcast playing it at the wrong speed and the age of the tape) and [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK32YKx1wpM put together a higher-pitched]] remix that at the very least makes the vocal sound a little clearer.

* SecondPersonNarration: One of the more unusual aspects of the lyrics is that they are sung in the second person-- the only pronouns that appear are "you" and "your".
* SinisterSubway: "In the subways of your mind" is pretty clearly the last line of the chorus, standing out to the extent that "Subways of Your Mind" may well be the song's title. The full line is disputed, though, with "There's a long, dirty way in the subways of your mind", "They're a long way(s) away in the subways of your mind" and "Paranoid anyway in the subways of your mind" all being popular interpretations.

* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: One of the few things most everyone agrees with about the song is that the singer has a noticeable accent that gives him away as someone for whom English is a second language.[[note]]Though there's a minority who think it might be an unusual regional accent from England or Scotland, and Australia has even been proposed.[[/note]] Beyond that, though, it's really hard to pin the accent to a specific country. Since evidence points to the song having been played on a radio station in UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}, it being some sort of northern German accent is the most likely possibility, but it's also been discussed as sounding French, Greek, Eastern European/Russian or Scandinavian. Further muddying the waters is the probability that he's emulating [[Music/JoyDivision Ian Curtis]], who famously emulated [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]], and Morrison in turn based his singing voice off of Music/FrankSinatra, meaning you have a Continental European imitating an Englishman imitating an American (from Florida) imitating another American (from New Jersey).

The title of this song, who wrote it, who the performers are, its date of composition and place of origin have never been identified.''' Although it generated some discussion at the time, and sporadic interest in the years since, the song soon fell back into obscurity...

...until 2019, when Gabriel da Silva Vieira, a Brazilian teenager, posted on several dozen [[Website/{{Reddit}} subreddits,]] asking for help identifying the song, and in doing so coined the popular name for it. It caught on, with interest snowballing after it was featured on a ''WebVideo/TalesFromTheInternet'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90JvgNQicp0 on July 9, 2019]] video, because Justin Whang happened to be a fan of the genre[[note]]he has since made four follow-up episodes covering the ongoing saga[[/note]].

This spurred a user, '''johnnymetoo''', who had participated in the original 2007 search and had downloaded the full version of the song from "Anton" at the time, to share it with Vieira[[note]] the version uploaded to the "name that song" sites was a minute-long snippet, the full song being about three minutes long[[/note]]. The search for the song soon reached Germany, likely where it was broadcasted.

Anglo-German DJ Paul Baskerville [[note]]who was believed to have played the song on his show on the UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}-based public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), where he remained on-staff[[/note]] played the song in its entirety, in the hopes one of the listeners would recognize it. He played it again when he traveled to Berlin for an interview about the song.

It was in Berlin that "Darius S." would hear this interview, after coming home from work, and immediately recognize the song as the one he had recorded from the radio some 35 years earlier. He contacted his sister, "Lydia H.", and she re-joined the search, dropping the bombshell that ''she'' had been "Anton", a ''nom de plume'' she had been using at the time, and logged into her long-dormant user accounts from 2007 to prove this. Since then, Lydia has been an active participant in the search.

Although fervor and publicity reached an all-time high in the Fall 2019 [[note]]with a ''Magazine/RollingStone'' article covering the search published in September[[/note]], no fruitful leads have been found since. However, in the summer of 2020, another sleuth, named '''flexxonmobil''' announced that he contacted the archivist at NDR, who had agreed to share the station's playlists to help identify the song.

To date, what playlists have been made available have only served to ''eliminate'' possible [=DJs=] and time periods[[note]]Baskerville's entire 1982-84 run on the Musik Für Junge Leute program on NDR was eliminated,[[/note]] as were those of ''all'' the other [=DJs=] on that program, as of 2020. Most of those involved in the search believe the song was broadcasted in late 1984: The synth heard throughout the song is likely a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7 Yamaha DX7]][[note]],marketed starting in 1983 and widely available the following year,[[/note]], and most other songs on the mixtape were released in mid-to-late-1984.

Identifying the song has been difficult due to its indecipherable lyrics; the vocals are drowned in the mix, and a many layers of reverb are applied, making the singer hard to understand. It is widely believed that the singer's[[note]]or songwriter's [[/note]] native language is not English, due to the stilted, awkward phrasing where most people ''do''<i> agree on the lyrics</i>. Many remasters exist online, attempting to resolve these issues, some more successfully than others.

The best guess, now, is that it was a demo recorded by an unknown artist,[[note]] who was obviously a big fan of British Post Punk,[[/note]] that was sent to the radio station and played at least once.

One issue is that, outside of Darius and Lydia, no reputable source has claimed to have heard the song from before the search began. Darius was listening to the radio for what could have been the song's single airing, and was the only one who bothered to record it.  The possibility that it's a {{Retraux}} hoax from the 2000s, that the siblings tried to pass off as an 80s song, has also been discussed.

NDR has stated that any physical media they possessed at the time has since been destroyed, likely meaning that no original copies of the song survive. On November 14, 2020, Baskerville gave an interview on German public television where he agreed that it was probably a demo that the station promptly disposed of, and confirmed that NDR archivists were continuing to trawl the station's playlists looking for a potential match, as it's a point of pride that the station never forgets anything. Ever.

As the year 2020 came to a close, it was discovered that the audio recording of the song has a signature "line" at 10Khz, common with all other known recordings from NDR-2 during the period. This lends credence that it ''was'' played by NDR-2, giving some authenticity to the story behind the song.

The search continues [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMysteriousSong/ on the subreddit, created by Vieira, in 2019]].

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song performed by an unknown artist, with only a 17-second clip available.----

''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPGf4liO-KQ The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet]]'' (frequently shortened to TMMSOTI or simply TMS) is the popular name for a song generally recognized as belonging to the [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] and/or PostPunk genres which was first uploaded to several "name that song" databases in the year 2007 by "Anton Riedel", who claimed to have heard it on [[UsefulNotes/WestGermany West German]] radio sometime in the [[TheEighties early-to-mid-1980s]]. '''The title of this song, the person(s) who wrote it, the individual(s) that performed it, and its date of composition and place of origin have never been positively and irrefutably identified.''' Although it generated some discussion at the time and sporadic interest in the years since, the song soon fell back into obscurity...

...until 2019, when Gabriel da Silva Vieira, a Brazilian teenager, posted on several dozen [[Website/{{Reddit}} subreddits]] asking for help identifying the song, and in doing so coined the popular name for it. It caught on, with interest snowballing after it was featured on ''WebVideo/TalesFromTheInternet'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90JvgNQicp0 on July 9, 2019]], because Justin Whang happened to be a fan of the genre (he has since made four follow-up episodes covering the ongoing saga). This spurred a user named '''johnnymetoo''', who had participated in the original 2007 search and had downloaded the full version of the song from "Anton" at the time, to share it with Vieira (the version uploaded to the "name that song" sites was a minute-long snippet, the full song being about three minutes long). The search for the song soon reached Germany, where it was said to have originally been broadcast. Anglo-German DJ Paul Baskerville (who was believed to have played the song on his show on the UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}-based public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), where he remained on-staff) played the song in its entirety in the hopes that listeners would recognize it, and then again when he traveled to Berlin for an interview about the song.

It was in Berlin that a middle-aged man known as "Darius S." would hear this interview after coming home from work, and immediately recognize the song as the one he had recorded from the radio some 35 years earlier. He contacted his sister, "Lydia H.", and she then re-joined the search, dropping the bombshell that ''she'' had been "Anton", a ''nom de plume'' she had been using at the time, and logged into her long-dormant user accounts from 2007 to prove this. Since then Lydia has been an active participant in the search.

Although fervor and publicity reached an all-time high in the fall of 2019 (with a ''Magazine/RollingStone'' article covering the search published in September), no solid leads have been found since. However, in the summer of 2020, another sleuth named '''flexxonmobil''' announced that he contacted the archivist at NDR, who had agreed to share the station's playlists to help identify the song.

To date, what playlists have been made available have only served to ''eliminate'' possible [=DJs=] and time periods[[note]]Baskerville's entire 1982-84 run on the Musik Für Junge Leute program on NDR was eliminated,[[/note]] as were those of ''all'' the other [=DJs=] on that program by the end of 2020. Most of those involved in the search believe the song was broadcasted in late 1984: The synth heard throughout the song is likely a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7 Yamaha DX7]][[note]],marketed starting in 1983 and widely available the following year,[[/note]]  and by comparing it to the other songs on the mixtape, most of which were released in mid-to-late-1984.

The best guess, now, is that it was a demo recorded by an unknown artist,[[note]] who was obviously a big fan of British PostPunk,[[/note]] that was sent to the radio station and played at least once.

One complication is that, outside of Darius and Lydia, no reputable source has claimed to have heard the song before the search began. Darius, apparently, was listening to the radio for what could have been the song's single airing and was the only one who bothered to record it.  The possibility that it's a {{Retraux}} hoax from the 2000s, that the siblings tried to pass off as an 80s, song has also been discussed.

NDR has already stated that any physical media they used at the time has long since been destroyed, making it possible that no original copies of the song survive. On November 14, 2020, Baskerville gave an interview on German public television where he agreed that it was probably a demo that the station promptly disposed of, and confirmed that NDR archivists were continuing to trawl the station's playlists looking for a potential match, as they take it as a point of pride that the station never "forgets" anything. Ever.

As the year 2020 came to a close, it was discovered that the audio recording of the song has a signature "line" at 10Khz, common with all other known recordings from NDR-2 during the period, which lends credence that it ''was'' played by NDR-2, lending some authenticity to the story behind the song.

To date, what playlists have been made available have only served to ''eliminate'' possible DJs and time periods[[note]]Baskerville's entire 1982-84 run on the Musik Für Junge Leute program on NDR was eliminated,[[/note]] as were those of ''all'' the other DJs on that program by the end of 2020. Most of those involved in the search believe the song was broadcasted in late 1984: The synth heard throughout the song is likely a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7 Yamaha DX7]][[note]],marketed starting in 1983 and widely available the following year,[[/note]]  and by comparing it to the other songs on the mixtape, most of which were released in mid-to-late-1984.

To date, what playlists have been made available have only served to ''eliminate'' possible [=DJs =]and time periods[=<span class="notelabel" onclick='togglenote("note93")'>[[superscript:note]]<span class="notelabel" id="note93" isnote="true" onclick='togglenote("note93")' style="cursor: pointer; font-size: smaller; display: none;"> Baskerville's entire 1982-84 run on the Musik Für Junge Leute program on NDR was eliminated =], as were those of ''all'' the other [=DJs=] on that program by the end of 2020. Most of those involved in the search believe the song twas broadcasted in late 1984: The synth heard throughout the song is likely a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7 Yamaha DX7]][[note]],marketed starting in 1983 and widely available the following year,[[/note]]  and by comparing it to the other songs on the mixtape, most of which were released in mid-to-late-1984.

The best guess, now, is that it was a demo recorded by an unknown artist,<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> who was obviously a big fan of British PostPunk, that was sent to the radio station and was played at least once.

One complication is that, outside of Darius and Lydia, no reputable source has claimed to have heard the song before the search began. Darius, apparently, was listening to the radio for what could have been the song's single airing and was the only one who bothered to record it.  The possibility that it's a {{Retraux}} track from the 2000s that the siblings tried to pass off as an 80s song has also been discussed.

Although fervor and publicity reached an all-time high in the fall of 2019 (with a ''Magazine/RollingStone'' article covering the search published in September), no solid leads have been found in the time since. However, in the summer of 2020, another sleuth named '''flexxonmobil''' announced that he contacted the archivist at NDR, who had agreed to share the station's playlists to help identify the song. To date, what playlists have been made available have only served to ''eliminate'' possible [=DJs=] and time periods (Baskerville's entire 1982-84 run on the ''Musik Für Junge Leute'' program on NDR was eliminated, as were those of ''all'' the other [=DJs=] on that program by the end of 2020). Most of those involved in the search believe the song to have broadcast in late 1984, owing to the technology (the synth heard throughout the song is almost certainly the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_DX7 Yamaha DX7]], marketed starting in 1983 and widely available the following year), and the other songs on the mixtape (most of which were released in mid-to-late-1984).

Identifying the song has been difficult due to its indecipherable lyrics; the vocals are downplayed in the mix and a layer of reverb is applied, making the singer hard to make out clearly. It is also widely believed that the singer's (or songwriter's) native language is not English due to a stilted, awkward phrasing in many of the passages where most people ''do'' agree on the lyrics. Many remixes exist online attempting to resolve these issues, some more successfully than others. The best guess now is that it was a demo recorded by the artist (who was obviously a big fan of British PostPunk) that was sent to the radio station and got played at least once. One complication is that, outside of Darius and Lydia, no reputable source has ever claimed to have heard the song before the search began. Darius apparently just happened to be listening to the radio for what may have been the song's only airing and was the only one who bothered to record it, though the possibility that it's a {{Retraux}} track from the 2000s that the siblings tried to pass off as an 80s song has also been discussed.

NDR has already stated that any physical media they used at the time has long since been destroyed, making it entirely possible that no original copies of the song even still exist. On November 14, 2020, Baskerville gave an interview on German public television where he agreed that it was probably a demo that the station promptly disposed of, and confirmed that NDR archivists were continuing to trawl the station's playlists looking for a potential match, as they take it as a point of pride that the station "forgets" nothing. Ever. As the year 2020 came to a close, it was discovered that the audio recording of the song has a signature "line" at 10Khz, common with all other known recordings from NDR-2 during the period, which likely proves that it ''was'' played by NDR-2--some of the first solid evidence of the authenticity of the song and the story behind it.

The search continues [[https://www.reddit.com/r/TheMysteriousSong/ on the subreddit created by Vieira in 2019]].

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song performed by an unknown artist, with only a 17-second clip available.

----

Compare Music/EveryoneKnowsThat, another song performed by an unknown artist, with only a 17-second clip resurfacing to this day.

...until 2019, when Gabriel da Silva Vieira, a Brazilian teenager, posted on several dozen [[Website/{{Reddit}} subreddits]] asking for help identifying the song, and in doing so coined the popular name for it. It caught on, with interest snowballing after it was featured on ''WebVideo/TalesFromTheInternet'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90JvgNQicp0 on July 9, 2019]], because Justin Whang happened to be a fan of the genre (he has since made four follow-up episodes covering the ongoing saga). This spurred a user named '''johnnymetoo''', who had participated in the original 2007 search and had downloaded the full version of the song from "Anton" at the time, to share it with Vieira (the version uploaded to the "name that song" sites was a minute-long snippet, the full song being about three minutes long). The search for the song soon reached Germany, where it was said to have originally been broadcast. Anglo-German DJ Paul Baskerville (who was believed to have played the song on his show on the UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}-based public broadcaster NDR, where he remained on-staff) played the song in its entirety in the hopes that listeners would recognize it, and then again when he traveled to Berlin for an interview about the song.

* TheEighties: The decade from which the song most likely originates. It certainly ''sounds'' very '80s.

!! Check it in, check it out! For the following tropes apply:

* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: One of the few things most everyone agrees with about the song is that the singer has a noticeable accent that gives him away as someone for whom English is a second language.[[note]]Though there's a minority who think it might be an unusual regional accent from England or Scotland, and Australia has even been proposed.[[/note]] Beyond that, though, it's really hard to pin the accent to a specific country. Since evidence points to the song having been played on a radio station in UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}, it being some sort of northern German accent is the most likely possibility, but it's also been discussed as sounding French, Greek, Eastern European[=/=]Russian or Scandinavian. Further muddying the waters is the probability that he's emulating [[Music/JoyDivision Ian Curtis]], who famously emulated [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]], and Morrison in turn based his singing voice off of Music/FrankSinatra, meaning you have a Continental European imitating an Englishman imitating an American (from Florida) imitating another American (from New Jersey).

* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: One of the few things most everyone agrees with about the song is that the singer has a noticeable accent that gives him away as someone for whom English is a second language.[[note]]Though there's a minority who think it might be an unusual regional accent from England or Scotland, and Australia has even been proposed.[[/note]] Beyond that, though, it's really hard to pin the accent to a specific country. Since evidence points to it having been played on a radio station in UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}, it being some sort of northern German accent is the most likely possibility, but it's also been discussed as sounding French, Greek, Eastern European[=/=]Russian or Scandinavian. Further muddying the waters is the probability that he's emulating [[Music/JoyDivision Ian Curtis]], who famously emulated [[Music/TheDoors Jim Morrison]], and Morrison in turn based his singing voice off of Music/FrankSinatra, meaning you have a Continental European imitating an Englishman imitating an American (from Florida) imitating another American (from New Jersey).