I have several mostly long-standing song mysteries – songs I remember hearing, want to hear again, but that I haven’t been able to track down.

1. Around, I’d say 2013-2015 there was an indie song by a band whose name was a list of four names, a la Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, but I don’t remember if there was an “and”, or whether there were commas. It starts (and maybe has throughout) a fast-fingered repeating guitar part. Also at least one of the names was kind of awkward, best explained by this seeming dead end: I just heard Virginia Beach by Hamilton Leithauser. It has the same sort of … wait, oh shit it’s In a Black Out by Hammilton Leithauser and Rostam. Well I’m pretty sure that was it, or anyway I’m 99% percent sure. Some of the clues I wrote and was about to write were a bit off the mark. (E.g. this was released in 2016, and I thought it was three or four different dudes’ last names) Status: Solved.

2. Sometime between 2000 and 2005 when I was commuting a lot I heard a Spanish language rock song on the radio. I have the impression it was a Mexican or maybe Mexican-American band but not a lot of confidence in that. I don’t remember how it goes, but it rocked. It moved along in a cool way, and was fairly low-fi, and underproduced. I probably wouldn’t recognize it if I heard it again but I might appreciate it just as much and wonder if that was it. Status: Hopeless.

3. Way back when the Cult became popular after Love (1985) was released, I heard a song by them, and it was good. I perceived it to be older than the Love album, and I assumed at the time it was from Dreamtime (1983), but it was not to be found on that album. They have older more obscure releases and I actually bought an eponymous album (1983) from when they (or just Ian Asbury and other dudes) were known as the Southern Death Cult, but it was not there either(and the production wasn’t up to the level I’d heard in the mystery song). It could be a track that didn’t make the Love album so I’m off to listen to Love (Expanded Edition) from 2009 shortly. Astbury was also in Death Cult as the words fell off the front of his band names so it’s also a todo item to listen to those tracks from 1983. I’m not at all sure it’s the song I’m looking for but if I hear something good that I don’t already know well from those sources, that’s got to be it. Status: Unsolved.

4. Back in 1989 or 1990 I heard a song by Big Black, or maybe Rapeman, or anyway by Steve Albini, that I can still hear a piece of in my head. It’d be hard to describe in words though. I bought or heard a number of Big Black albums over the years looking for it, and never found it. I feel sure I’ll recognize it if I hear it, but perhaps I invented the whole thing in my head somehow and it doesn’t exist. I need to put in the legwork to comprehensively listen to everything on Spotify by Big Black and also see if there’s some alias I should consider. Status: Unsolved.