What's the longest you've ever spent trying to find a song?

[awesomeaustinv]

Do you ever hear some catchy song at a party, on the radio, at an amusement park, etc. and want to listen to it again but can't figure out what the song is called and months or even years pass before you finally find it? It doesn't happen as much now that apps like Shazam exist, but there are still songs that I heard years ago and loved that I don't know the name of. There's one in particular where I can vividly remember every time I've heard it because I treasured those opportunities to hear the song, although usually it was in too noisy of a setting to make out the lyrics and googling what little of the lyrics I did hear didn't produce any results. I can't remember much of the song anymore besides the basic tune, though I think it may have been an indie rock song and involved whistling for a significant portion of the song. The sound reminds me of "Don't stop/color on the walls" by Foster the People (another song that took me years to find), but it's a different song. I first heard it sometime in the last ten years, but the last time I heard it was years ago, leading me to believe that it may have been a relatively recent song that perhaps fell out of popularity a while ago? At this point, I don't know if I'll ever hear the song again, and the whistle and guitar of the chorus will haunt me forever, getting stuck in my head every few months just to remind me I don't know what it's from. Do you have any songs like that? Are there any you've figured out recently?

Edit: I FOUND IT. Somehow just occurred to me to try and find a compilation of whistling songs, and there it was! It's Fitz And The Tantrums - The Walker.

[pip bip]

years....

[flatisflat]

@awesomeaustinv
This one?

[BeaterGT]

I've spent weeks, sometimes months for the really difficult ones where Shazam might as well be laughing at me. The most infuriating one for me is Cat Power's cover of Space Oddity for the freakin Lincoln MKS commercial. Not only did it take me a while to find but it's only a 30 second clip! There's no full song!

Also, love me some Foster the People. It's a shame people usually only know them for "Pumped Up Kicks".

[svend]

@awesomeaustinv
Honestly, seven years.
There was an American TV show I grew up with called Out of This World, the theme song went,#would you like to swing on a star, carry moon beams home....'.
For seven years off and on I tried finding it, then I happened to hear it on the film Hudson Hawk.
And that was it, found it.

[Saracen]

The theme from Street Hawk. One of my favorite shows as a kid.

Then one day in my college friend's car, he's playing Tangerine Dream, and the track "Le Parc" comes on.
...I flip out and I'm like "that's...that's fuckin STREET HAWK!!"

He had no idea what I was talking about.

[awesomeaustinv]

@flatisflat No, but that is a pretty good song. That'll be stuck in my head for a while.

[SilentbutnotreallyDeadly]

@awesomeaustinv when your musical memory stretches back into the 1980s and your CD collection numbers in the thousands... I've lost more music in my lounge room than I care to admit.

[phenotyp]

@awesomeaustinv my whole life.

[MisterButtercup]

Yup. I've got one I heard I think as a theme song from an 80s show that keeps coming around. Going to listen to the songs above in the hope one of those is it

[Qaaaaa]

Man, I'm still looking and I don't think I'll ever find it...

[Echo51]

Like 2 years i think. Heard it a bunch, found the song it sampled it's vocals from, downloaded the original, lost the remix, finally found it again a few weeks ago.
SmokeFishe - Now i see

Vocals sampled from Sarah Fimm - Virus

[trivet]

@awesomeaustinv
10+ years and counting. I heard a song while leaving a restaurant and I found myself singing along to myself. Haven't heard it since the 80's, but it was one I really liked.

I can't remember a single lyric or anything of actual use when trying to search for it, so I've played through hundreds of 80's hits and b-sides trying to find the damn song. I've never found the one I was looking for, but I've rediscovered hundreds of other great "forgotten" gems - so the search certainly hasn't been in vain.

[Snuze]

I usually put on indie rock/metal comps when Im working in the garage, so its all random stuff by obscure bands. And usually the same night I'll start humming a song I heard which I absolutely don't know the title or even artist. Then it will take me weeks or months to track down, then within a day or two I forget.

Here's one in particular that took me a while to track down.

[Mark Tucker]

"What Do All The People Know" by the Monroes. Big hit in the summer of 1982, heard it out of the blue on the radio one afternoon in about 1995. Took me until 2000 to find out the band name, and I didn't actually find a copy of the song until 2006.

Longest it's ever taken me to track down an actual physical album is 27 years: the original version of Billy Thorpe's Children Of The Sun. The 1987 CD re-master is everywhere; the original 1979 LP is hard to find. (Apparently they're not super rare, but I just couldn't get my hands on one.) Found a near-perfect copy in an antique mall last year for $6, practically ran to the cash register with it.

[MattHurting]

Moondance by Van Morrison. Great song, but not on the radio very often. Over 10 years after first hearing it and I finally figured it out after a coworker was playing a CD (~20 years ago) at work and I burst into her office like a madman. Love me some Van the Man.

[Carbon Fiber Sasquatch]

Usually it's an instrumental so there's no lyrics to google. The longest one was about 20 years. My dad used to listen to this song and it was the DJ break on the radio station he listened to so I heard it since I was at least 7 or 8. I only figured it out about 3 years ago and I'm 30

[ST80MND]

I'm still searching for a tune I heard on the radio in 1987! I could kinda hum the tune from the first part, and I know 1 line of lyrics. I'm still looking to this day. It was one of those songs that slipped past the censors and rotation managers, and should never have made airplay in the first place, but I remember hearing it like twice.

[gmporschenut also a fan of hondas]

I had this stuck in my head last from an IBeria safety video. Spent a few hours tracking it down.

[awesomeaustinv]

@trivet reminds me of "the most mysterious song on the internet," which sounds like a song from the 80s and is really catchy, but was only ever played once on a German radio station and to this day nobody knows for sure who wrote it. The only reason why we know it exists is because a couple people recorded it off the radio and asked the internet what song it was back in 2007 I believe, and the search is still ongoing.

[awesomeaustinv]

@st80mnd What line of lyrics do you remember?

[awesomeaustinv]

@matthurting I love that song! It's not my usual style, but... How can you not love Moondance!? That song slaps.

[awesomeaustinv]

@gmporschenut-also-a-fan-of-hondas Dang, I just went to try and add that to my Spotify playlist but it's not on Spotify. Catchy song.

[trivet]

@awesomeaustinv said in What's the longest you've ever spent trying to find a song?:

@st80mnd What line of lyrics do you remember?

None - the problem was, I didn't think of purposely remembering anything about the damn song....and when I thought about it a few days later there was nothing in the 'old data bank' to recall. I figured since I knew the lyrics (most likely just the refrain), I would eventually be able to find it. by searching out 80's One Hit Wonders.

It's been so long that I might not even know it if I hear it again anyways. But because of it, I have built a substantial and incredibly awesome "80's Hits" playlist that I probably wouldn't have if not for this elusive song. So, not really a loss.

EDIT: Oops - I thought you were asking me what lyrics......

[fintail]

First thing that came to mind: