XWord Muggles Forum

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 7:54 am**

A picture is worth a thousand words. My notes from this weekend. I was off on the syllables for the longest time...

So I tried to match back to other answers, to clues for those answers, down the baa baa sheep hole, musical note letters. Way too much work to get the answer but I did.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:00 am**

A meta-code likely to be found in an escape room

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:15 am**

I agree with whoever said early on that this one had a lot of short rabbit holes going nowhere. 1) 40A BLUE crosses 36D SUEDE... so “shoes” will be a clue.. nope - no other crossing song titles. 2) The first two TEs have “re” in them (REname that tune).. remove the “re” and you have “awe clear” and “so the”... but that’s the end of the “re” words. Nope. 3) oh! Draw a star on the grid.. where would its points be? SOSSWE? SOSMRE??.. nothing. 4) clearly this is about TTLS: stars, sky, so many of the words to that song in the grid.. but nothing around those words helps. And why are key words missing, like “wonder”.. though “awe” is in 18A when you remove “re”. Maybe there are 8 such re-namings/synonyms of key words? Nope. 5) Stars EVERYWHERE in the bottom left cluster: in the ASTRA-STAR-TARS cluster you could prolly make STAR at least 5 ways up down or diag?? 8 ways?? Nothing. 6) 59A “When you wish upon a star..” is it? Upon a star? Is CH-HAPA code for a celebrity??
I gave up.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:16 am**

Here were my convoluted solving steps:

1. Notice that there are eight longer theme entries and we are looking for an eight-letter word.

2. See “Star Search” and ignore the theme entries for hours as I search the grid for anything that could possibly be a star.

3. Find lots of STAR anagrams in the SW corner.

4. Realize that “Baa Baa Black Sheep” also has the same tune and switch to looking for sheep.

5. Go back to looking for stars. Realize that “star” in one song is “G” in the other.

6. Switch to looking for G’s but only find 3. Look for other letters that look like stars (X? K? Y?)

7. Go back to looking for stars. Play Boggle with the grid (my favorite rabbit hole that never works) and find SIRIUS in the northwest corner.

8. Try spelling something from the note letters of the songs. Realize that GIBBERISH has too many letters to be the solution.

9. Since the star on the keyboard is above the 8, look in all the squares with 8’s and multiples of 8. No stars, no sheep, no nothing.

10. Read the title again and notice the word “lyrics”.

11. Look for diamonds of letters in the grid (i.e. “diamonds in the sky”). No diamonds (or stars or sheep for that matter).

12. Circle some words in the grid that could be lyrics to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Why are there two “sky”s ?

13. Notice that all the circled words are in the longest answers. Remember (hours later) that there were 8 themers that maybe were important. (Duh!)

14. Match lyrics with letters and find the answer.

As soon as I got PUZZ.... the rest was obvious, so I had no problem negotiating the LMNOP phrase to pull out the L and N. And I had known for hours that STAR=G, but didn’t make the leap to the rest of them until much, much later.

Lots of fun, but when choosing a club from my meta bag, I have to remember to stop trying to drive with my putter.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:23 am**

I saw the obvious “Twinkle” references, but couldn’t find a way to translate them to a solution. I became convinced that they were a red herring, and so spent some time googling grid entries to see which were song titles. (I found some; but then there are probably many random combinations of words that, if googled, would yield names of obscure songs.) The lyrics to “Jesse,” a Carly Simon song, looked promising. Still couldn’t find a hook to solve.

Congratulations to those who found their way to shore.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:27 am**

TMart wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:16 am Here were my convoluted solving steps:

1. Notice that there are eight longer theme entries and we are looking for an eight-letter word.

2. See “Star Search” and ignore the theme entries for hours as I search the grid for anything that could possibly be a star.

3. Find lots of STAR anagrams in the SW corner.

4. Realize that “Baa Baa Black Sheep” also has the same tune and switch to looking for sheep.

5. Go back to looking for stars. Realize that “star” in one song is “G” in the other.

6. Switch to looking for G’s but only find 3. Look for other letters that look like stars (X? K? Y?)

7. Go back to looking for stars. Play Boggle with the grid (my favorite rabbit hole that never works) and find SIRIUS in the northwest corner.

8. Try spelling something from the note letters of the songs. Realize that GIBBERISH has too many letters to be the solution.

9. Since the star on the keyboard is above the 8, look in all the squares with 8’s and multiples of 8. No stars, no sheep, no nothing.

10. Read the title again and notice the word “lyrics”.

11. Look for diamonds of letters in the grid (i.e. “diamonds in the sky”). No diamonds (or stars or sheep for that matter).

12. Circle some words in the grid that could be lyrics to “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”. Why are there two “sky”s ?

13. Notice that all the circled words are in the longest answers. Remember (hours later) that there were 8 themers that maybe were important. (Duh!)

14. Match lyrics with letters and find the answer.

As soon as I got PUZZ.... the rest was obvious, so I had no problem negotiating the LMNOP phrase to pull out the L and N. And I had known for hours that STAR=G, but didn’t make the leap to the rest of them until much, much later.

Lots of fun, but when choosing a club from my meta bag, I have to remember to stop trying to drive with my putter.

OMG, I did almost all these same steps ... except number 9 and of course, 14!

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:36 am**

TMart wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:16 am ... when choosing a club from my meta bag, I have to remember to stop trying to drive with my putter.

Beautiful, TMart!

I'll wait for what I hope is an appropriate amount of time for you all to forget, but I am going to steal this perfect phrase & post it, here, since I can't post it anywhere else that would make sense.

Take this as a pre-apology, or not, but it's going to happen.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:39 am**

After reading all these brilliant strategies, I feel very lucky to have solved this one on Thursday!
When I was a kid we had a marvelous 1957 recording of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," read and sung by Cyril Ritchard (a boxed set of 33rpm records). All weekend I found myself singing the Mad Hatter's poem:
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:46 am**

Noticed the words from "Twinkle" in the eight theme answers pretty early (although I wondered if the key to 48A was I or IWON), but never got the links between the two songs. Tried to backsolve for RHYTHMIC, ROMANTIC and VARIABLE. Then took a long voyage (down the River Styx) googling lyrics, learning en route that there is a band called Skyharbor, a song called "Won't Do It" by Blur, a song called "What Now" by Rihanna, a song titled "So There" by Ben Folds, etc. Not to mention "When YOU WISH Upon a STAR." And many other futile paths mentioned by others.

Kudos to the Meta Stars who got it.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:47 am**

For a while there, I was wondering if this was April Fools Day and the correct answer was NONSENSE - because that's all I was finding, and it certainly describes some lyrics.

While scouring the grid, I did spot this shoutout to our hosts

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:51 am**

I spent hours trying to find "diamonds" in the grid around the words "Sky" (two diamonds = 8 letters). Came up with Odysseys, but that seemed far less than a 100% answer. Took a nudge to get me back onto the 8 theme answers, which as many have noted, were the first thing to notice.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:56 am**

Nope. Not in a million years would I have ever gotten this. Glad I only wasted a few hours.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:02 am**

This is one of those puzzles that I can admit I would never have found the answer. I became so befuddled after seeing the scores of song titles and band names in the grid, that I had a complete mess of possible solves (none were 100%). I had an inkling that Twinkle was part of the answer, but I missed the key words. It was amazing construction. Kudos to those of you who figured it out!

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:09 am**

I was so far out to sea that land was but a rumor. I got off-track early and stayed there, as the first thing I noticed was that two of the theme phrases included other entries ... plus one letter. The "arsea" in 44A was clearly 11D with an added "r" and the first four letters of 59A were obviously 31D with a tag-along "u." That went nowhere fast, though, so I took those extra letters and told myself, "U R not going to leave the bar this week." And, dear reader, I didn't.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:36 am**

yourpalsal wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 2:46 am

I matched the letters to syllables and still came up with nonsense. Probably because I'm such a bad singer. But I knew it had to work. So I kept singing and switching back and forth between twinkle words and alphabet letters and finally PUZZLING came into focus

Yes, this was a tough puzzle for those of us who can't carry a tune. Line up syllables? Are you kidding? Even some with musical talent had a difficult time with that. These type metas should provide notice. Warning: You Will Be Required To Match Syllables.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:37 am**

Cindy wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 6:40 am
Also what is up with all the metas recently that just ask for a????? Letter word. Not a state, not an object, not a president. Not anything. Just a word!

This has been an annoying trend.

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:39 am**

Twinkle, twinkle OMG,
Please do listen to my plea,
When you said “RENAME THAT TUNE”
Made me drink all afternoon,
Like a shoe that rubs my toe,
Please don’t convolute it, Bro!

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:57 am**

Another rabbit hole was to look for songs that go diamond (sell many copies).

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 10:05 am**

Well I had the exact right idea in using the words to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in the first 10 minutes (starting two long entries with Sky was a dead giveaway). But I never even got close to thinking about matching them with the ABCs. KAS 4.5

Posted: **Mon Jul 20, 2020 10:08 am**

Nlbil wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 9:57 am Another rabbit hole was to look for songs that go diamond (sell many copies).

I was pleased to see SKY BLUE SKY in the grid, by Wilco. Amazing band! Also, JESSE by Carly Simon. Neither were diamond, but worthy of mention.

XWord Muggles Forum

"Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

Re: "Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020