Swimmer Kristin / WED 11-5-14 / 1954 hit for Chords / Cary who played Robin Hood / 1965 hit for Dixie Cups / Modern acronym meaning carpe diem / BP merger partner of 1998 / 1973 song by Rolling Stones subtitled Heartbreaker / Pre-1939 atlas name / Song of South appellation

Constructor: Gareth Bain

Relative difficulty: Easy


THEME: songs with nonsense titles

Theme answers:

• "DO WAH DIDDY DIDDY" (17A: 1964 hit for Manfred Mann)
• "OB-LA-DI, OB-LA-DA" (26A: 1968 song from the Beatles'"White Album")
• "IKO IKO" (37A: 1965 hit for the Dixie Cups)
• "SH-BOOM" (39A: 1954 hit for the Chords)
• "MMM, MMM, MMM, MMM" (46A: 1994 hit for the Crash Test Dummies)
• "DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO" (60A: 1973 song by the Rolling Stones subtitled "Heartbreaker")

Word of the Day: MT. COOK (47D: Highest peak in N.Z.) —

Aoraki / Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zealand. Until 2014, its height was officially listed as 3,754 metres, but new measurements have given a revised height of 3,724 metres (12,218 ft). It lies in the Southern Alps, the mountain range which runs the length of the South Island. A popular tourist destination,^[2] it is also a favourite challenge for mountain climbers. Aoraki / Mount Cook consists of three summits lying slightly south and east of the main divide, the Low Peak, Middle Peak and High Peak, with the Tasman Glacier to the east and the Hooker Glacier to the west. (wikipedia)

There's something cute about this, I suppose, but I think I found it less charming that I was supposed to.  I think my interest in the puzzle waned considerably when I hit the Crash Test Dummies clue and just pounded the "M" key over and over and over again. Perhaps the pleasure is in remembering the songs, if you happen to be fans of them. It's an interesting set, albeit an odd one. Four of the songs are "hits," but two … aren't. Or they sort of are because they're by legendary bands, but they're not clued as "hits" because … I don't know. "DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO (Heartbreaker)" got as high as #15 on the Billboard Hot 100. I think that's a "hit.""OB-LA-DI etc." wasn't even released as a single til 1976, and only got as high as #49. Five sixths of these answers feature repeated sounds, leaving "SH-BOOM" out in the cold. I dig the nonsense, but the coherence factor seems slightly lacking.


Then there's the grid, which is brutally segmented, resulting in a slew of (mostly gruesome) three-letter answers. Seriously, tons of them. The middle is especially intolerable, with its BOK LAO IDE and its ISMS and its EMI RMN SIM. RAI and ANI and HOR above, OTT and ONT and POR below. It's pretty rough. No long(er) Downs to add spice to the grid. So it's a fine puzzle if what you're looking to do is take a little nostalgia tour of novelty songs, but as a puzzle, it's a little lacking in heft, oomph, zip, sh-boom.


Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld