Six Characters in Search of a Pop Song - July 2022

[burak]

OK, yeah hard pass. Matt already blogged about it over at crosswordfiend.com very diligently so I have nothing to add.

It's funny how the only letter I was able to flip was B because BLEB is an obscure word and it works. I really tried to make IOU into YOU but couldn't figure out how to make YTSIN a legit entry. I was sure AUTH-HAKE was switchable too but how? Do I switch the T as well?

Alas, I gave up. Should've searched for BREATH in that top 500 list lol.

Now after all, if this were an earlier puzzle, "oh we're just changing words randomly and in only one direction and in no particular order because f*** you" would've actually worked since there would've been stronger hints or asterisks or something. Making this the July puzzle was not the best idea.

[burghman]

Can someone please post the hint now that it's too late to submit?

Now that the deadline has passed, Pete has it on his website:

https://pmxwords.com/2022-puzzle-7-six- ... song-hint/

For those who want the full solving experience, the hint that was emailed on Thursday at noon was more obscure than the one posted on the website: “The letters S-W-I-T-C-H need to be changed in the grid in six places to make new words.”

[KayW]

Even before the hint, I tried changing the grid letters within THESWITCH entry (among many other useless things). After the hint, I also looked elsewhere in the grid and of course W was the easiest target as there was only one other choice. I first tried making words going both ways and the BLEB/BREATH trap put me on the trail of the answer.

Assisted by this recently ubiquitous ad:

[Cindy N]

Even before the hint, I tried changing the grid letters within THESWITCH entry (among many other useless things). After the hint, I also looked elsewhere in the grid and of course W was the easiest target as there was only one other choice. I first tried making words going both ways and the BLEB/BREATH trap put me on the trail of the answer.

Assisted by this recently ubiquitous ad:

And that commercial is exactly what came to mind as soon as I switched W/B to make BREATH.

[pmxwords]

Hi Muggles...

Quite the month! I'm sorry for those of you that found this month's puzzle frustrating. My test-solvers didn't get the meta, and I changed the clue for 1-Down to make it easier, but I didn't make it easy enough. Mea culpa.

I'm very impressed by the small number of you that got the meta without a hint. Congrats!

In the interest of fairness, please email me at the contest address if you didn't request the hint, but somehow got access to it or got a nudge.

Thanks to those that have done so already!

Pete

[Katiedid]

Oh, wow.... I was only using the emailed hint. Knowing that the six new words would spell out title AND band name would have been a huge help to me. I'm pretty sure I would have solved it.

So essentially, you have to get BREATH first, find the song, and then backsolve? I had my eye on THC/THE for a while. But I didn't think going through every instance of the letters in S-W-I-T-C-H and finding all possible words in either direction would get me to the solution. And due to circumstances, I didn't have enough time or energy last week to solve it.

[boharr]

Their cover is terrific. @pmxwords

[jbird]

Oh, wow.... I was only using the emailed hint. Knowing that the six new words would spell out title AND band name would have been a huge help to me. I'm pretty sure I would have solved it.

So essentially, you have to get BREATH first, find the song, and then backsolve? I had my eye on THC/THE for a while. But I didn't think going through every instance of the letters in S-W-I-T-C-H and finding all possible words in either direction would get me to the solution. And due to circumstances, I didn't have enough time or energy last week to solve it.

Yea I think the W in WREATH was the only one to change (other than the W in SWITCH which you could logically assume wouldn't change). POLITE stood out to me and changing that to POLICE seemed obvious. I think that would've been the logical connectors without knowing the other words. The funny thing is that my wife suggested the ultimate answer and I dismissed it because I thought the title was "I'll Be Watching You." Oooof I had to eat some crow on that one

[MikeM000]

I don't know if others fell in this rabbit hole but in modern tech the on/off terminology has been replaced with O/|. I don't have the grid in front of me but there were a few OI and IO present, as well as a number of I(letter)O threesomes. Some of those sequences had "flippable" letters in the middle, like an H or N that, turned 90 degrees, would become an I or Z.

[Laura M]

Their cover is terrific. @pmxwords

Seconded. I'm actually not a big fan of the original, but this is very nice.

My husband's acapella 80's cover band (formed in 2019 and never got off the ground at least partly due to Covid) also did a good version IMO :-)

[mattythewsjpuzzler]

Hi Muggles...

Quite the month! I'm sorry for those of you that found this month's puzzle frustrating. My test-solvers didn't get the meta, and I changed the clue for 1-Down to make it easier, but I didn't make it easy enough. Mea culpa.

I'm very impressed by the small number of you that got the meta without a hint. Congrats!

In the interest of fairness, please email me at the contest address if you didn't request the hint, but somehow got access to it or got a nudge.

Thanks to those that have done so already!

Pete

So Aetna as central middle clue and INSTANTTEA (with Aetna "switched" with an extra letter) was the extra degree of cruelness that made me stop looking. Well played