"Rename That Tune" - July 17,2020

[Tony S]

This one may be my undoing. After the years of doing these, and having varying degrees of success, the last several weeks have found me so Lost At Sea that I may hang up my Meta hat. It's been fun hanging with all you Muggles. Good luck!

I had similar thoughts after seeing the solution to this one --- I solve so many puzzles from both sides of the pond that I really don't need the Friday WSJ meta to occupy my time. However, I know I'll be at it again on Thursday evening --- that's what addiction's all about.

[TPS]

This one may be my undoing. After the years of doing these, and having varying degrees of success, the last several weeks have found me so Lost At Sea that I may hang up my Meta hat. It's been fun hanging with all you Muggles. Good luck!

I was there 4 weeks ago - haven’t solved one since either but I enjoy the people on this board and someone is always nice enough to explain it to me - often without me asking.

[FrancesY]

Sent in MISHEARD. Convinced myself that “Are We Clear” suggested I was looking for the misheard lyrics to a song—somehow involving Iamb, Anjou, Isle, Wilbur Suede, Egg Spec, etc.—whose misheard title would be the answer. Couldn’t get off that track.

The rated difficulty of the puzzle also through me off. Initially it showed up as a two-star puzzle.

Congrats to all who solved it!

[BarbaraK]

Shame on me! I should have gotten this one. I noticed the importance of 74-Across, I wrote down the lyrics of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and the 8 theme answers on my scratch sheet, but couldn’t put it together. I am fairly musical, and on other metas have even wished that they would involve using the notes more!

Instead I continued my pattern of submitting a guess when it’s wrong, not submitting when it’s right. My answer was NONSENSE, inspired by the Name Game song, and suggested by sounds of several grid entries like HULU, TOJO, HAPA, and especially OBAMA!

Gaffney! Gaffney, Gaffney
Bo-baff-ney, bo-na-na fanna
Fo-faff-ney. Fee fi mo-maff-ney, Gaffney!

Seems like there ought to be a meta using the Name Game. All the younger muggles would be totally baffled.

[DrTom]

Shame on me! I should have gotten this one. I noticed the importance of 74-Across, I wrote down the lyrics of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and the 8 theme answers on my scratch sheet, but couldn’t put it together. I am fairly musical, and on other metas have even wished that they would involve using the notes more!

Instead I continued my pattern of submitting a guess when it’s wrong, not submitting when it’s right. My answer was NONSENSE, inspired by the Name Game song, and suggested by sounds of several grid entries like HULU, TOJO, HAPA, and especially OBAMA!

Gaffney! Gaffney, Gaffney
Bo-baff-ney, bo-na-na fanna
Fo-faff-ney. Fee fi mo-maff-ney, Gaffney!

Seems like there ought to be a meta using the Name Game. All the younger muggles would be totally baffled.

All these years later and I am STILL baffled. The only admonition I ever got (and yes I am bringing admonition back!) was "you can't do Chuck!"

[higgysue]

I thought this meta was brilliant. I did have to print out the sheet music since I’m musically challenged. I’m surprised some people thought it was so tough. I feel like Matt gave us pretty good directions on this one.

[yourpalsal]

I was surprised this one played so tough. I didn't think solvers would need to use anything but pencil and paper -- write down the letters A through Z on the left, then sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" and write down the corresponding words on the right. The only tricky part was LMNOP, but that's why you sing those fast -- since you're cramming five one-syllable letters in where there are only three one-syllable words ("what you are") in the song. So it had to be L-N-P there.

Matt, I hope you’ll join us in the Tuesday zoom. This was such a great puzzle. It’ll be fun to discuss, as well as other puzzles, cocktails, birds, books and miscellany we have known!

Tuesday at 4:30pmPT/7:30pmET
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89184367093

[LadyBird]

Shame on me! I should have gotten this one. I noticed the importance of 74-Across, I wrote down the lyrics of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and the 8 theme answers on my scratch sheet, but couldn’t put it together. I am fairly musical, and on other metas have even wished that they would involve using the notes more!

Instead I continued my pattern of submitting a guess when it’s wrong, not submitting when it’s right. My answer was NONSENSE, inspired by the Name Game song, and suggested by sounds of several grid entries like HULU, TOJO, HAPA, and especially OBAMA!

Gaffney! Gaffney, Gaffney
Bo-baff-ney, bo-na-na fanna
Fo-faff-ney. Fee fi mo-maff-ney, Gaffney!

Seems like there ought to be a meta using the Name Game. All the younger muggles would be totally baffled.

All these years later and I am STILL baffled. The only admonition I ever got (and yes I am bringing admonition back!) was "you can't do Chuck!"

As a naive third-grader, I didn't know the F-word ( but my classmates did). There was a boy named Chuck on the bus. They suggested I take that round, which I sang out with gusto.

[BarbaraK]

Shame on me! I should have gotten this one. I noticed the importance of 74-Across, I wrote down the lyrics of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and the 8 theme answers on my scratch sheet, but couldn’t put it together. I am fairly musical, and on other metas have even wished that they would involve using the notes more!

Instead I continued my pattern of submitting a guess when it’s wrong, not submitting when it’s right. My answer was NONSENSE, inspired by the Name Game song, and suggested by sounds of several grid entries like HULU, TOJO, HAPA, and especially OBAMA!

Gaffney! Gaffney, Gaffney
Bo-baff-ney, bo-na-na fanna
Fo-faff-ney. Fee fi mo-maff-ney, Gaffney!

Seems like there ought to be a meta using the Name Game. All the younger muggles would be totally baffled.

All these years later and I am STILL baffled. The only admonition I ever got (and yes I am bringing admonition back!) was "you can't do Chuck!"

Bart is not a good choice either

[DrTom]

... 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.

Well, as it happens, the few times I have golfed I apparently was driving, chipping, putting, etc. with a divining rod because I found water every time!

[Al Sisti]

Seems like there ought to be a meta using the Name Game. All the younger muggles would be totally baffled.

All these years later and I am STILL baffled. The only admonition I ever got (and yes I am bringing admonition back!) was "you can't do Chuck!"

As a naive third-grader, I didn't know the F-word ( but my classmates did). There was a boy named Chuck on the bus. They suggested I take that round, which I sang out with gusto.

Our trivia team is called "Chuck Chuck Bo Buck." Yeah, we're like 10 years old.

[DrTom]

A picture is worth a thousand words. My notes from this weekend. I was off on the syllables for the longest time...
20200720_073900_copy_756x1008.jpg
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.

Oh I had one of those, but it was torn to shreds in frustration. I never did get them to line up, but I did get the answer so I'm not as frustrated as some. Now when it comes to MGWCC, there I am frustrated.

[Al Sisti]

Sent in MISHEARD. Convinced myself that “Are We Clear” suggested I was looking for the misheard lyrics to a song—somehow involving Iamb, Anjou, Isle, Wilbur Suede, Egg Spec, etc.—whose misheard title would be the answer. Couldn’t get off that track.

The rated difficulty of the puzzle also through me off. Initially it showed up as a two-star puzzle.

Congrats to all who solved it!

And BLUE/SUEDE SHAHS... and (AS)KEW STYX... and and and.... I got MISHEARD in my head as an initial guess at the answer -- the most famous of which is probably " 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy'," and "SKY" is in the grid twice. I spent/wasted WAY too long trying to make it work.

[JennyByrd]

In perhaps the worst rabbit trail ever - I took to coloring in the grid where certain letters were (YOU=U), (ARE=R) (CAY=K), etc and comparing the patterns to constellations. At one point I was ‘sure’ that it would be SERIOUS because SIRIUS is the Dog Star, and well Astro is a dog, and well.... SERIOUS only has 7 letters. Congrats to those who solved it. Well done.

[DrTom]

Am I the only one to be annoyed as to Matt’s hints and themes. Seems to me Lately they are unhelpful at best and misleading in some cases. If I had to come up with a list of 1,000 words to “describe some song lyrics”, I don’t think puzzling would have made the list. Especially annoying this time as I was so close but off a couple of notes, so missing two of the eight letters. Had zzling ending but would not have come up with puzzling. Oh well, there is always next week......

Well, I think that "Puzzling" was actually a very tidy way to tie everything up:
1. The words to "Twinkle, Twinkle..." are an interrogatory, the singer is puzzled enough to "wonder what you are".
2. Getting to the right letters was certainly a puzzling endeavour
3. The answer was an answer to a puzzle

Actually as soon as I brute forced myself into making the last three letters ING, saw that ZZ had to be there and determined that the First letter, since it could no longer be an N, and an O made no sense that it had to be P. At that point I shouted, or rather sang out (to the obvious tune):

P U Z Z LI N G I THINK I'VE SOLVED THIS DARN THING, OH MY GOSH I'M SO DARN GLAD, I WAS GOING TO SOON GO MAD, P U Z Z LI N G I THINK I'VE SOLVED THIS DARN THING

It could have been worse, you might have been looking for sheep (though with all the counting you'd have dozed off)
You might have been looking for candy (if you had chosen the French melody from which Wolfie stole Twinkle Twinkle)
You might have been looking for Santa (if you had chosen the German tune Morgen kommt der Weihnachtsmann )
or, and in keeping with the bar and Isaac, if you had chased the Dutch song (Altijd is Kortjakje ziek) you would have been looking for alcohol.

[DrTom]

Seems like there ought to be a meta using the Name Game. All the younger muggles would be totally baffled.

All these years later and I am STILL baffled. The only admonition I ever got (and yes I am bringing admonition back!) was "you can't do Chuck!"

As a naive third-grader, I didn't know the F-word ( but my classmates did). There was a boy named Chuck on the bus. They suggested I take that round, which I sang out with gusto.

Poor LadyBird, there is always someone who gets Chucked...

[DrTom]

Sent in MISHEARD. Convinced myself that “Are We Clear” suggested I was looking for the misheard lyrics to a song—somehow involving Iamb, Anjou, Isle, Wilbur Suede, Egg Spec, etc.—whose misheard title would be the answer. Couldn’t get off that track.

The rated difficulty of the puzzle also through me off. Initially it showed up as a two-star puzzle.

Congrats to all who solved it!

And BLUE/SUEDE SHAHS... and (AS)KEW STYX... and and and.... I got MISHEARD in my head as an initial guess at the answer -- the most famous of which is probably " 'Scuse me while I kiss this guy'," and "SKY" is in the grid twice. I spent/wasted WAY too long trying to make it work.

Or like the time I heard an old girl friend belting out a Beatles tune "and he landed in my ears and in my eyes". My, I don't want to offend because it is early in the relationship, answer was "Honey, I do NOT think those are the words to Penny Lane."

Oh, and wait it's NOT "scuse me while I kiss this guy", I guess I was wrong about that purple haze all along and when he was feeling funny and did not know why it wasn't due to pondering a life choice. On a related note, are sweet dreams not made of cheese and was this city not built on sausage rolls, gosh this is a terrible shock, I'm going back to watching her scream and kicking the dancing queen....

[Alan H]

i misread/jumped to a conclusion on 74A and thought the two songs were the ABCs and "ABC" by the Jackson 5 (who are famous children). i thought it was 2 songs with the same title, not tune. dumb mistake which led to a weekend of false starts.

[femullen]

I was there 4 weeks ago - haven’t solved one since either but I enjoy the people on this board ...

Yeah, me too. The people here are fun to chat with on the blog or at the weekly seance on Zoom. And, as someone else noted today, I just love reading other people's rabbit holes on Monday mornings.

Which reminds me of my very first rabbit hole last Thursday evening. I noticed that first and last theme answers (18A, ARE WE CLEAR, and 64A, STAR SEARCH, contained the word EAR, so I was sure the answer would be something somehow "between the ears." Wrooooong again!

[Eric Porter]

I still go with Wonder Twins. Utterly obscure. Who on earth (besides Wendy, apparently) ever heard of Wonder Twins?

I would be very surprised of anyone between the age of 35 - 45 who didn’t know of the Wonder Twins - it’s definitely a child of the 1980’s specific reference.

Also little known fact the characters names were based on Tarzan and Jane but they modeled their voices and personalities off the Osmonds!

Wonder Twin powers activate!

I fall right in the middle of that age range, but I'd never heard of them until I solved that meta. My parents didn't let me watch much TV when I was a kid.