The songs are “Scarborough Fair” and “Mrs. Robinson,” performed by Hall of Famers Paul Simon and Art Garfunkle.
“Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme,” I count as a win even though technically it’s the name of the album, not the song. But many of us who weren’t paying close attention think it’s also the name of the song or that it should be – like the song “In Other Words,” which officially changed its name to “Fly Me To the Moon” because that’s what everyone called it.
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1. If you do cryptic crosswords, you probably caught on right away that Final Arrangements indicated anagrams of the final letters of the long entries. Going clockwise round the grid, those were (everyone sing along now) PARSLEY, SAGE, ROSEMARY, and THYME.
2. Several of the early solvers got the Simon and Garfunkle just from MRS ROBIN SON, which I had put it only as an afterthought. That’s when I changed the prompt to “two songs and who performed them.”
3. Some solvers saw other S&G songs lurking in the shadows, but SF and Mrs. R were the only two I put there. Try as I might, I couldn't work “A Simple Desultory Philippic (or How I Was Robert McNamara'd into Submission)” into the grid.
4. I tried to make the clues musical wherever I could. My editor, the redoubtable BrianMac, suggested taking Carly Simon out of the clue for PAIN since CARLY was the answer to a clue, and Simon was half the answer to part of the meta. But I couldn’t think of any other “pain” songs offhand, so I left her in. Other dubious musical clues included the one I had originally for RAKE: “He makes progress in a Stravinsky opera.” Brian convinced me (it wasn’t hard) that this was a bit obscure, so I changed it to something with autumn leaves.
5. Schmeel wrote, “I also saw 4A GOESBAD and 61A ATISSUE that may describe their complex relationship.” He has a point.
The solvers are:
1. Tmart
2. Wendy Walker
3. ChrisKochmanski
4. oldjudge
5. Meg
6. Cindy
7. Frankie Heck
8. boharr
9. Al Sisti
10. whimsy
11. C=64
12. Schmeel
13. SewYoung
14. whimsy
15. madhatter5
16. cbarbee002
17. ReB
18. hcbirker
19. KayW
20. Dow Jones
21. MikeM000
22. Dave C
23. Rpardoe
24. dudeski
25. Fkelly
26. Dannyvee
27. Beth Tyrpin
28. JeanneC
29. Anita
30. Tom Wilson
31. BarbaraK
32. Hector
33. lbray53
34. Hidden in 3D
35. Abide
36. m5rammy
37. Naptown Kid
And the prize? You want a prize? OK, be caller number 25, and I will send you, in violation of all copyright laws, a .pdf of sheet music for 50 Paul Simon songs. Maybe 51. I lost count.