Although Otto Deutsch, the nonpareil Schubert scholar catalogued every piece Schubert wrote, doubted the continued existence of the song called Die Erde (The Earth). While Schubert was known to have written a song with that title, all traces of it had disappeared; Deutsch listed it at the end of his catalog as D. 989.

However, in 1969, 141 years after Schubert's death, the song or something very much like it, reappeared and was accepted by some scholars as an authentic work. Die Erde was thought to have been written in the autumn of 1817, and it was inserted into Deutsche's catalog as D. 579B, thereby sharing a listing with the authentic Schubert song Der Knabe in der Weige.

This strophic setting of Friedrich von Matthisson's three-verse pantheistic poem has a bouncy little beat in E major. The melody cavorts gamely in leaps and scale passages over a jaunty piano accompaniment that sounds like nothing else in the Schubert catalog—that is, it sounds prosaic. While some commentators have their doubts about the authenticity of the song, no one would dispute that, if it is indeed by Schubert, it is hardly top-drawer Schubert.

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