On the face of it, I'd have to agree with your wife and Dewy and Mike. I can't think of any reason why hearing the drums should trigger the correct pitch in your mind (unless maybe you have some degree of perfect pitch and the drums trigger your memory of the song, as Mike suggested)
But whatever theories we come up with to explain why it can't be done, if you can actually do it then all our theories are useless.
Test yourself some more and let us know.
By the way, as you're from London, DON'T use the drum intro to Eastenders theme tune as a test. I believe those are electronically processed with a bit of bass tone added, which would let you pitch the tune correctly,(as your wife suspected).
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