Music / The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet

♫ Like the wind... ♫ ^*Or is it "Blind the wind", "Fly the wind", or something else entirely? Yes, it's that kind of song.

The Most Mysterious Song on the Internet ^note frequently shortened to TMMSOTI or simply TMS is the popular name for a song belonging to the New Wave and/or Post-Punk genres. It was first uploaded to several "name that song" websites in 2007 by an "Anton Riedel," who claimed to have heard it on West German radio sometime in the early-to-mid-1980s. '''

Originally uploaded under by Anton^note A pseudonym used by Lydia, sister of the person who originally caught it on tape, Darius; she has another pseudonym as bluue 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 posted on various subreddits, asking if anyone knew about this song.

Things snowballed from there.

YouTuber Justin Whang uploaded a video in his series,Tales From the Internet on July 9, 2019, about TMS.^note he has since made four follow-up episodes covering the ongoing saga

Contact with groups searching for this song inspired a DJ, Paul Baskerville,^note who was believed to have played the song on his show on the Hamburg-based public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), where he remained on-staff to broadcast this song, in hopes of identifying it, with another broadcast happening in Berlin later.

It was the Berlin broadcast that brought attention to the original sibling duo, Lydia, ^note  Anton, and her brother Darius S. Lydia joined the search, helpfully providing a full version of the song from an old mix tape.^note  She would later provide a higher quality version from a different mixtape.

Later, the Rolling Stone would write an article on the song, sparking further interest.

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  native language is not English, due to the stilted, awkward phrasing where most people do agree on the lyrics. Many remasters exist online, attempting to resolve these issues, some more successfully than others.

The search continues on the subreddit, created by Vieira, in 2019. More information can also be sought on The Other Wiki.

Compare Everyone Knows That, another song performed by an unknown artist, with only a 17-second clip available.

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

• The '80s: The decade from which the song most likely originates. It certainly sounds very '80s.
• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The odd phrasing of the few agreed on lyrics^note  "consequence of living", "sense of communication," point to them being written by a non-English speaker. They might be trying to emulate the British Post-Punk lyrical style by using good sounding words that fit the song's meter.
• Break Up Song: One of the most common (and straightforward) interpretations of the song is exactly this, as most of the lyrics imply some sort of finality ^note "the consequence of living/leaving", "there's no tomorrow", "the sun won't ever/will never shine."
• Indecipherable Lyrics: Most lines in the song are contentious, thanks to the singer's thick accent and the vocal track's burial in the reverb-heavy mix. The first line is said to be "Blind the wind", "Like the wind", "Fly the wind", or even "Locked away". The opening line of the chorus is likewise either "Check it in, check it out", "Take it in, take it out", or "Shake it in, shake it out".
• In the Style of: The reverb-heavy production and cavernous bass-baritone vocals are an audible nod to Joy Division.
• New Wave Music: Although sometimes called this, it's often described as belonging to its close cousin, Post-Punk. See below.
• Overcrank: One Redditor has theorized that the recording is pitched down^note  through some combination of the original broadcast playing it at the wrong speed and the age of the tape and put together a higher-pitched remix.
• Post-Punk: Commonly referred to as such. It's definitely reminiscent of genre standard-bearers like Joy Division and Bauhaus.
• Second-Person Narration: An unusual aspect of the lyrics: they are sung in the second person. The only pronouns that appear are "you" and "your."
• Sinister Subway: "In the subways of your mind" is pretty clearly the last line of the chorus, 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.
• Three Chords and the Truth: A very simple, guitar-driven melody. Although synths are featured, they rather notoriously play only a rote, three-note motif.^note There is also a soft woodwind-like melody in the background of the second verse which is also provided by a synth.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: One of the few things almost everyone agrees on is that the singer has a noticeable accent, maybe indicating English is their 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. 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 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 that he's likely emulating Ian Curtis, who famously emulated Jim Morrison, and Morrison in turn based his singing voice off of Frank Sinatra— meaning you have a Continental European imitating an Englishman imitating an American, from Florida, imitating another American, this time from from New Jersey.

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