"Nowhere Man"

[MarkL]

OTC. Liking the click(s). Looking forward to the next effort and more Wile E. Coyote.

Cheers!
MAL

[hashbrown]

My first MMM off the couch! Thanks for a great puzzle TMart

[LesY]

Great puzzle, Tom. Mega meta click. Thanks for composing.

[Abide]

MMM good!
Answer submitted with inquiry about "sub-theme". Excellent job TMart

[LaceyK]

Confirmed OTC! And humming some tunes. Love the construction.

[Schmeel]

Off the couch.
After I felt I was getting nowhere, man it all fell into place.
Great puzzle!

[ChrisKochmanski]

This has been at a particularly fun puzzle for me. We’re at a condo rental (socially distanced!) “Up North”, “on the Big Lake” (Lake Michigan) ... Brian Mac surely knows all this Mitten State lingo ... with no printer and only this iPhone for internet access, so I’ve had to draw out the grid on preprinted graph paper and keep scrunching up my eyes to be able to read the clues on this tiny screen. (All First World problems, of course.)

A friend had emailed me about something else. He’s a music fanatic, in the midst of moving from Michigan to Arizona, and with no knowledge at all of meta puzzles — but he was interested enough, just this once, to join in on the sleuthing. I described to him where I’d gotten so far on this puzzle, and he almost immediately suggested an answer that turned out to be correct! Another solver here nudged me to something that confirmed the solution.

What a fun group solve!

And what a terrific puzzle!

Tom, you’ve outdone yourself!

The creativity on these MMMs has been amazing!

[boharr]

The creativity on these MMMs has been amazing!

Here. Here. And thanks to all.

[SewYoung]

So far, the possible answers I have come up with do not have 12 letters. Will look again later in hopes of discovering the correct answer.

[TMart]

Nudge #1:



The title is the name of a song that will help narrow down your choices.

[TMart]

Nudge #2:



Think about what 72A is literally telling you to do - there are two steps indicated here (one in the first part, and one in the parenthetical).

[Al Sisti]

Solved and confirmed OTC. Great puzzle with a solid click!

[Dplass]

Wow, still no clue. Will there be a 2pm clue?

[TMart]

Nudge 3:


You should have gotten a hard click for an answer. Read 38A + 41A, and also 22A as confirmation of your answer.

[SewYoung]

O.K. Got it now, but will not take credit since it took all three nudges.

[cherikee]

I just discovered this board last night - this was my first MMM and it was great! Nice to have something to work on in the early part of the week. Thanks! I got off the couch pretty quickly on this one.

[TMart]

Nowhere Man solution: STU SUTCLIFFE, the original bass player of the Beatles, who left the band before they hit it big.

From the title (Nowhere Man) we have an obvious Beatles theme, and 12 of the grid words can be combined to form the names of Beatles songs:

1A and 71A = PENNY LANE
5D and 18A = YELLOW SUBMARINE
32A and 26D = GET BACK
44D and 10A = HEY JUDE
59A and 55A = PAPERBACK WRITER
63Aand 70A = BLACKBIRD (minor ding here for one word vs two words for all the others)

But who is the musician? Contrary to some Muggle guesses, none of the four Beatles have a 12-letter name (McCartney has 2 c’s!).

The key to the whole puzzle was the clue for 72A (EMEND), which laid out the two-step process to find the answer:

1.Put better words together
2. (that might give some clues to an answer.)

In other words, (1) combine 12 grid words to form song names, and then (2) use the first letter of the clue for each word to spell out the answer. In printed clue order (across then down) the first letters of the clues for all the song name grid words spell STU SUTCLIFFE:

1A She = S
10A Thespian = T
18A Underwater = U
32A Support = S
55A User = U
59A Trashy = T
63A Coal = C
70A Lark = L
71A Interstate = I
5D Faint = F
26D Fetch = F
44D Expression = E


ALMOST FAMOUS across the middle was meant to be an after-the-solve Easter egg/confirmation.

BASS (at 22A), Stu’s instrument, was another hint as well, which also led a few solvers to guess the answer without the final step.

In all, over 30 solvers got the right answer, one way or another.

Thanks for all the comments and feedback. I’ll be back at some point when the next meta idea hits!

Tom

[Al Sisti]

Awesome puzzle and construction...

[boharr]

Awesome puzzle and construction...

Agreed

[Wendy Walker]

Oh geez! I didn't get the meta but while trying to do so I certainly learned a lot about the movie "Almost Famous." None of which, sadly, had anything to do with the Beatles. Terrific puzzle!