Muller Monthly Music Meta, May

puzzle — 6:50; meta — 15-20 minutes (Matt) 

Season 4, Episode 5 of the Muller Meta, and I’m making good on my boast to go 12/12 in 2015. 5-for-5 now after crushing this one like a meta-solving machine in less than a half hour including solve time.

Pete’s instructions are: The meta for this puzzle is the singer-songwriter who would make an appropriate sixth theme entry. The first five are:

19-A [“Your Mama Don’t Dance” singers (FROM)] = LOGGINS AND MESSINA.

25-A [Lead singer for Oingo Boingo and penner of the “Simpsons” title theme (TO?)] = DANNY ELFMAN

39-A [Eurythmics star with a successful solo career (TO?)] = ANNIE LENNOX.

58-A [“Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses” singer (TO?)] = KATHY MATTEA.

64-A [Art group? (FROM)] = SIMON AND GARFUNKEL. Nice clue.

Those parenthetical to’s and from’s threw me for a few minutes, until I remembered that old meta-solving dictum: “Remember to look at the title.” In this case it’s “Now That’s Dedication!”

To/from, dedication, some wires starting to cross…aha! ANNIE LENNOX could be a reference to John Denver’s famous “Annie’s song.” I looked at the fourth theme entry and thought: is there a “Kathy’s Song?” I googled it and found that it’s a song by 64-A (Simon and Garfunkel). Not familiar with it, but I now had a strong suspicion that there would exist a Loggins and Messina tune entitled “Danny’s Song,” and lo and behold there is. Didn’t know the title, but now that I listen I do know the song, and so do you.

Which makes JOHN DENVER our meta answer, since Simon and Garfunkel pair their FROM with Kathy Mattea’s TO, Loggins and Messina pair their FROM with Danny Elfman’s TO, so Annie Lennox
needs JOHN DENVER (with a FROM) to finish her TO.

Unique meta idea — 4.15 stars. And I’m 5/5 in 2015 without really breaking a sweat! Bring it on, Meta Maestro.