Sing Along If You Know It!

Good morning, fellow crossword enthusiasts! It’s time for your dose of wordplay and trivia fun. This week’s puzzle is centred around something I’m usually bad at - knowing the lyrics to songs! I’m more of a how does the song sound guy vs how do the lyrics speak to me guy. Still, I suspect I was at least partially inspired by an upcoming show I’m excited to see - Off Book: The Improvised Musical! Edmonton has its own version of this, but Zach and Jess are truly some of the best to do it (and have 300+ episodes online to listen to). The clip below is actually a full hour-long live show, so maybe open that up in a tab and come back to it later ;)

Discussion (and spoilers!) below the break.

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Sing Along If You Know It! by Brandon Cathcart

Discussion

Was this a particularly tricky puzzle? No. Was it silly? Yes. And sometimes, that’s enough. Granted, sometimes I don’t know exactly which syllable I’m supposed to be singing (Is this song da-da? Or ba-ba?), but as long as you hit the “ah” you’re close enough, I think.

We have a money-themed pair of artists in today’s puzzle - SLOAN and ABBA. We all know ABBA, so let’s highlight Canadian indie darlings Sloan’s amazing “Money City Maniacs.”

Today’s Theme

The clues for the three full-width-across answers all follow a similar pattern: [Partial lyric from "Song" by Band]. While this is an intimidating clue on its own, you may put together, through considering the three songs or perhaps getting a few letters, that you don’t need to know the songs all that well.

The partial lyric to each is the repeated syllable sing-along parts: The LA LA LAs from the chorus of "Brown-Eyed Girl" by Van Morrison, the NA NA NAs from the bridge/outro of "Hey Jude" by The Beatles, and the BA BA BAs from the chorus/outro of "Happy Together" by The Turtles.

Behind the Clues

16A. The Nintendo Wii was the only console we were allowed growing up, and of course we had Wii Sports. That was part of the reason we were even allowed a Wii - it was more “active.” [Word following "Wii Sports" in a sequel] is RESORT, as in Wii Sports Resort, which looked awesome, but I never played it. Played a lot of Guitar Hero, though.

19A. It’s always a bit strange explaining cool motions via text. [Modern dance move done by putting the face into the crook of one elbow and extending the other arm out] is DAB, which in real life, I would have described as “Just do this:” then dabbing. I think we’re way past dabbing in the “what’s cool” sphere but imo dabbing will live on forever.

28A. I am certain I’m about to get several “Umm, actually” messages about [Kitten calls (or the genetic ancestors of all Pokémon, canonically)]. Look, I did my research. I remembered that being a thing. I checked and there’s some debate but it’s a pretty commonly accepted thing. But there’s always someone out there who knows better than me. DM me, Pokémon nerds, I dare you…

1D. I will admit, sometimes I get a bit hypothetical with my approach to cluing. [If the lost underwater city had a sports team (The Tridents, maybe?), this would be their shorthand on scoreboards] asks you to take a few mental leaps. The lost underwater city Atlantis, as a three-letter shortened form for scoreboards, could have a few variations, but the one that felt most natural to me was ATL.

6D. I may not so subtly be trying to educate the masses on pinball through this crossword. [Shake a pinball machine too hard] is TILT, which means the machine shuts your flippers off, you lose the ball, and perhaps most importantly, you lose any bonus points you accumulated - which on older machines can be most of your score. Don’t do it!

22D/23D. A nice clue pair here that revealed itself during the grid-filling process. [Complete beginner, slangily] is a NEWBIE, and NEWBIE online is a NOOB (sometimes stylized as n00b).

I hope you enjoyed this puzzle!

Until next week,

Brandon

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