Muller Monthly Music Meta, MMXVII Mega-Meta

The Season Six Mega-Meta of the Muller Monthly Music Meta is here, and Pete tells us: The meta for this puzzle is the mega-meta for 2017, a popular song from the ’70s.

This meta was not too difficult, since the central down entry spells out just what you need to do: RHYME is the answer, clued as [What you need to find for each of the 12 entries with triple-starred clues in order to get a famous song lyric].

OK, so let’s do it: those dozen words, highlighted in green in the solution grid above, are:

KNITS
BLOT
MIME
STREW
CAKE
DUH
MANGE
LUST
RETAX
WAKE
SNIT
JEEZY

“It’s not time” jumped out for the first three. Then the middle was murkier, but the last three had to be “take it easy.” Mange was probably change, and then LUST RETAX was likely JUST RELAX. So: “It’s not time to make a change, just relax, take it easy.” I knew it wasn’t the Eagles’ “Take It Easy,” but the lyrics did sound familiar thought I couldn’t place them. I asked Mr. Google who immediately replied with contest answer FATHER AND SON by the great Cat Stevens (born Steven Dmitri Georgiou, now known as Yusuf Islam). Here’s my favorite of his songs, from “Harold and Maude”:

Also note the Muller-esque (meaning: with everything else going on, how did he sneak yet another twist in there?) trio of BOTHER SAND DUN in the seventh column, in yellow above. Those rhyme with “Father and Son,” and earned solvers who noticed them an extra two points for the year.

Now, if you actually did the mega-meta throughout the year instead of just this week, then it was not so easy. You didn’t get the RHYME hint and only got one word at a time, so much more difficult. But Pete took it easy on us slackers this year; you didn’t even need to go back to the previous twelve puzzles, since Pete included twelve rhyming words (different from the ones used throughout the year) in this grid.

Well, that was another excellent year, wasn’t it? The jewel in the crown was certainly September, which was magnificent, but July and December also stood out. Thanks to our meta maestro for another year of (Born to Be) wild good chases, red herrings, adrenaline rushes, and musical interludes.

And here’s some happy news: There will be a 2018 Muller Monthly Music Meta! Pete has more than met his charity fundraising goal , so Season 7, Episode 1 should be in your mailbox on Tuesday, January 2nd (correct me in comments if that date is wrong, Pete).

I’m quite pleased that this outstanding and entertaining series will continue, and will be blogging the new season here. After failing to complete a perfect season in 2017 I’ll be highly motivated for a clean sweep in the new year. Happy 2018 to all, and I’ll see youback here very soon.