Title: “Triple Bypass” by Pete Muller, Mack Meller, and Andrew White
Prompt: The meta for this puzzle is a pop-rock hit from the ’80s
Answer: “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler, 1983
Grid: 7:17
Meta: DNF
So I’m 0-for-3 on the Muller Meta this year, and these are supposed to be the easy months! I can’t say I was in a rush since I’d glanced at it a few times during the week but didn’t have a breakthrough, and have spent another 90 minutes on it with similarly nothing tonight. I asked a crossword friend for the answer and when I saw it, I said to myself, after my rage subsided: this is an excellent example of how certain metas hit you right away, and certain ones don’t hit you at all.
Skipping to the answer: we had three grid-spanning horizontals:
[17-A: One with a supporting role on Broadway, say?] = PATRON OF THE ARTS
[41-A: Out-of-this-world revolutions] = HIGH EARTH ORBITS
[65-A: “How sad!”] = SORRY TO HEAR THAT
Two things now: 1) each of these entries conceals the word HEART, and 2) none of the HEART parts of the horizontal themers works on the downs. You just get nonsense if you try to put them in, so there must be a HEART angle. On the downs, all three of the HEARTs spells TOTAL.
First thing I tried should have been to take a few moments and just look at the grid and ponder why Pete and the Gang would have made these HEARTs not work both ways. I even noticed that they spelled TOTAL if you just put the correct letters on the downs. Typing that out now, how embarrassing is it that I didn’t just put it all together from that?! But my brain just could not see TOTAL as a conception instead of as its component letters.
Am I the only solver who got this wrong? Please, let there be one more at least!
4.75 stars.
I still can’t believe I missed this. Had this idee fixe that I was “bypassing” some letters by going up or down to avoid the TOTALs. As Elsa sang in “Frozen”…well, you know.
Oh neat, just noticed the down entries are valid with either HEART or TOTAL in place. Nice touch.
As to the meta, it snapped into place pretty quick once I got the total crossings worked out. Not too bad for me.
Though I do have other reasons to be happy with this month…more to come on that ;)
Thanks to the Muller crew again.
Thanks Matt!
497 correct this month.
Hope you can break your negative streak next month!
Pete
I can barely ever solve a Gaffney week 4 and I got this one a 1/3rd of the way into the grid… it just goes to show with these metas that sometimes it hits you or it doesn’t. I also didn’t realize the downs thing either, which also proves sometimes ignorance is bliss. After the first themer I was like “that should be PATREON OF THE ARTS” and “HEART” works with the downs, so it’s eclipsing the heart. Quickly crossed another couple long entries to confirm…
I first took TOTAL as a clue for ALL, so I started searching for pop songs titled, “All For My Heart,” or something similar. A little embarrassed to admit that I ended up googling 80s pop songs, saw “Total Eclipse . . .” and went, “Oh. Right.” Really fun meta idea!
Although it doesn’t fit the meta well enough that I think Pete Muller would accept it as an answer, there is a great song by ABC from 1982 called, “All of My Heart.” It wasn’t released as a single in the US, but it was a #5 hit in their native UK.
Matt, I feel for you, but, in a way, I feel great because last week I was able to solve not only your WSJ, but also your Week four which I started Sunday morning and finished by late 11AM. The reason I bring this up here is because I too missed all three of the first music metas, and, by solving your metas, I finally feel as if I am not dying of some rare slow brain disease such as Kuru or Monkey Pox or just plain Old timers disease. My brain still works, yay. So don’t feel bad about missing the music metas. As long as blood is going to your brain and likewise for me, we are happy guys.
By the by, (does that sound arty?). Because I didn’t get any clicks, but got the Heart from the puzzle, I did recognize the group “Yes” which was in the puzzle because years ago I owned “Fragile/Close to the Edge”. Yes, I did have a youth, so because of that, in their “90125” album they had a #1 release which was big in the 1980s entitled “Owner of a lonely Heart” so I went with that. I figured it was as good as any. But with all the people that got the meta, I obviously missed something.
I can’t remember the last time I solved the meta for a WSJ puzzle, but I am three for three this year with Pete’s puzzles.
I somehow managed to miss the whole rickrolling thing* and remembered his name as ASHLEY, which screwed up my first TOTAL. I also didn’t notice that both TOTAL and HEART (anagrammed as necessary) both worked in the Down answers. That makes me like this puzzle even more.
*The first I heard of that prank/meme was in a 2009 NYT grid by Natan Last (which I probably solved three or four years ago). At the time, it pissed me off. “What the fuck is RICKROLLING?”