puzzle -12:27; meta 7 minutes (Matt)
Season 2, Episode 7 of the Muller Monthly Music Meta, and man was this grid tough. 12:27 in Across Lite, which is way longer than any other MMMM, IIRC.
That was partly because I made so many mistakes, like MOLSON instead of LABATT for [“Largest Canadian brewery and maker of “Blue” beer], JUSTA instead of WAITA for [“___ minute, Mr. Postman”], ASAP instead of STAT for [“Yesterday!”], and IPOD instead of NANO for [Music player with a built-in pedometer]. Plus so much trickily vague cluing, like [Unable to function] for SHOT and [Places to contemplate] for ASHRAMS. Plus the meta hint was presented in quote form, always tougher than a normal theme ceteris paribus. Plus a few new-to-me entries in the grid (TALOS, SABU, CLE).
Meta instructions asked for a song with a three-word title (precise, since “a three-word song” isn’t the same thing), and the four-part “Meta Hint” spelled out:
AN ENDING PERHAPS / CAN TRANSFORM / AN OLD HIT INTO / A NEW CHART-TOPPER. So that could go in a lot of directions, but the title “Literal Thinking” might come in handy, and also: check out that 7-letter entry across the middle, BLONDIE clued non-musically as [Dessert bar with a brown sugar base]. Well it’s also a new wave band from back in the day, of course, so let’s start there: Blondie’s only big song with a three-word title is “Heart of Glass,” so I tried to make that work for a minute. Got nowhere. Scanning their greatest hits list I see familiar songs like “Dreaming,” “One Way Or Another” and “The Tide Is High,” but nothing with exactly three words. Maybe BLONDIE being there is a coincidence after all — but wait, there’s “Call Me”as one of Blondie’s biggest hits, and if we engage in “Literal Thinking” as the title suggests, then “Call Me” plus a word meaning “perhaps” — such as “maybe” — would yield Carly Rae Jepsen’s 2011/2012 megahit CALL ME MAYBE, which is this puzzle’s meta answer. Nifty.
4.05 stars. You can make lots of songs by adding a word to other songs — even “Maybe” alone is a famous song — but putting the band name across the middle was a nice nudge and both these songs were #1’s so that’s a little more special.
Several solvers at Lollapuzzoola told me they either had or were about to submit an answer to the mega-meta, so I better sit down and take a look before September’s puzzle! See you then.
Thanks Matt
97 correct answers this month. No mega-meta guesses so far.
Pete
Maybe Baby.
I didn’t hear anyone say they had solved this mega meta yet. I did hear them say they had solved the Lollapuzzoola meta, or had already solved this weeks MMMM. I know I said I still needed to send this week’s solution in and some others said they needed to sit down and try the mega meta. I actually though there might have been some extra confirmation of the answer in the grid or elsewhere that I was missing but the only thing I could come up with was that in the center it said
C……………….ALL
..BLONDIE..MOE
and thought that if you interpreted the O in MOE as a wild card this gave you CALL M(E MAYB)E but then figured this was probably a meta Fata Morgana and not a real thing.
I enjoyed the puzzle, but wasn’t thinking “outside the box”. I was trying to find a classic with 2 words in the grid or the clues so I could add the 3rd word. I’m old enough to remember the Blondie songs, so I’m kicking myself this morning.
I had it as Born to Die/Born to Run, since dying is a sort of ending. Looked for any subsidiary hints in the grid or clues, totally missed the blondie. Well done, Pete. Like the real answer much better than my own.
thanks Paul
Is anyone else old enough to remember the “Call Me” from the ’60’s (Petula Clark and others). It was later used in a phone company commercial and was the one that popped into my head (and won’t leave), but I did get the Blondie reference and confirmed that before submitting. Fun puzzle, as usual.