Update: mystery solved!

The mystery song is Ammunition by All Good Children, a band from Hamilton, Ontario.

Thanks to everyone who had fun helping us solve this mystery! Big thanks to Stephen Quinn and Lisa Christiansen from CBC Radio One’s On the Coast for understanding this nutty nostalgic quest and for putting it on the air in the first place. And brownie points to CBC for publishing this article.

“Since 1993, a mystery song has lived on a cassette tape made by Robyn and Erin Hanson. Haunting them. Teasting them. Judging them. Maddening them.”

The mystery was solved simultaneously on Twitter and in the CBC website comments, including one tweet from band The Killjoys, who knew the song immediately, and by people who knew members in the band. Thanks to everyone who helped us complete our 22 year old quest. My sister said it best: It’s the end of an era!

Can you help me identify this mystery song?

http://www.bcrobyn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/mystery.mp3

It’s been stumping music geeks since March of 1993. Even the most renowned music gurus are stumped by this. It’s no longer about the song or the band, but the fact that nobody can identify this song is what has me so intrigued. Certainly there must be somebody out there who recognizes it. Are you that person?

Note: The first few seconds of the recording sound static-y. Ignore this, it clears up. At first it almost sounds Roger Waters-ish, but then around the 35 second mark it transforms into an alternate universe early 90’s-era U2. It’s uncanny!

Update November 18:

Stephen Quinn from CBC’s On The Coast heard about this story through Twitter and is going to air my musical mystery today at 3:35pm PST on CBC Radio One (88.1 FM in Vancouver – stream it online, here).

You can follow along a few Reddit threads where people are trying to solve this mystery, here, here, and here.

You can read my first failed attempt to solve this mystery back in 2002 on a U2 discussion forum. There are 11 amusing pages of discussion amongst U2 diehard fans to sift through, here.

You can read another archived discussion circa 2002, here.

I can only hope the original band members hear this song and come forward!

It’s still not U2.

A quick recap of the background story: