For 16 years, dedicated internet sleuths have been trying to track down a musical mystery. 

In August 2007, a user on a Ukrainian message board heard a snippet of the song on a bootleg Russian DVD, playing on a loop in a menu screen promoting various rips of dubious legality. (Remember when DVDs had menus? Also: remember DVDs?)

Ever since, there’s been a slow but steady trickle of interest in the lostwave song. It was never released commercially, so you couldn’t Shazam it; the lyrics weren’t written anywhere, so you couldn’t Google it. 

The yearning tune, known as “How Long Will It Take” from a line in the chorus, has touches of both ‘80s rock and early ‘00s guitar-driven pop. The vocals have some similarity to inimitable Dolores O’Riordan from the Cranberries without a noticeable accent, with enough haunting emotion to ignite the mystery.

Over the years, hundreds of people have become interested in the mystery, leading to the thousand-member-strong subreddit r/HLWIT (an initialization of How Long Will It Take) being set up recently to answer the question: how long will it take to find out who wrote this song? 

After a decade and a half of no success, as noted by Rolling Stone, the mystery seemed to be a perpetual brain-teaser: an interesting anomaly, a way to lose hours in dedicated Google rabbit-holes that ultimately go nowhere.

That is, until a user called the-arabara cracked the case on December 8.

In an impressive piece of investigation that involved finding the possible creators of the original DVDs, tracking down a movie mentioned on a job application, then finding a different obscure song in the credits, the user found that track in the SOCAN (Society of Composer, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) database. 

That, writes the anonymous user, “led me to this reddit post, which had a link to this podcast with the full song.”

The musician turned out to be Paula Toledo, a Vancouver-based artist, songwriter, and motivational speaker. She recorded the song in Langley in the early 2000s, licensed it for films and television in 2005, and hadn’t given it much more thought since then. She had no idea it had become such a source of intrigue.

“I am absolutely blown away that a community of music lovers connected online in such a beautiful way through my song,” Toledo says in a statement; “to think that music has the power to connect so many people through a shared purpose.”

Toledo’s inbox immediately blew up with fans informing her about the impossible journey they had undertaken to find the song. 

In response, she released the full song on Bandcamp. The 20-year-old track has some moments of audio fuzz, all of which adds to the vibe of discovering a lost treasure.

All proceeds from the song’s sales in 2023 will go to Music Heals, an organization that supports music therapy for youth, young adults, and grief and bereavement programs.

Toledo, who’s now in her fifties, moved from Montreal to Vancouver to attend university. She later graduated with a masters from the University of Pennsylvania, studying music’s power in fostering social connection, and has been active in promoting creative ways to fight loneliness. 

“I am thrilled to be able to shine the light from this attention to the power that music can have to nurture social connections in the wake of this loneliness epidemic we are experiencing,” Toledo explains. “To be able to donate 2023 Bandcamp proceeds from the sale of my song to Music Heals is the most meaningful way I can extend thanks to this online community and scale something beautiful they have created.”

So, the answer for “how long it takes” seems to be about 16 years—and well worth the wait.