Thanks to Kishore for discovering this song, typing out the lyrics and telling me about it. Many versions of the 'Crossword Puzzle' song are available online, others I liked: by Loni Ackerman (from the original cast of Starting Here, Starting Now), by Danielle McCully. 'sea' continues in the next line in a different context 'Times' is the unspoken word, rhyming with 'crimes' 'time' is used in the next line 'Times' is the unspoken word, rhyming with 'climes' 'time' is used in the next line However, hartebeest is not a gnu wildebeest is. 'harte' is a homophone of 'heart' which matches the sense of the sentence If I weren't so dumb, I'd be spending this Sunday in a church hearing wedding chimes,Īnd I'd never remember there was a puzzle in the Sunday Times. So bright someone else who could not tell a fig from a frigate is off with my Hecky at sea… What's a five letter word meaning 'Phi Beta Kappa'. 'Cause my mind is miles off on a boat to Bermuda with an ignorant lousy crumb I am sitting here doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, and I know why the words won't come. Statue of Liberty S T A T U E O F L I B E R T Y Perhaps he wanted to get the long ones by himself. Perhaps that's why I'm left here on the shelf Seven blanks meaning airhole, it's FISTULA I bet'

Īll the times Hecky'd tell me, 'You shut up, this I'll get. Starts you feeling as if having brains or intelligence was one of the world's worst crimes,Īnd the sentence is doing the crossword puzzle in the Sunday. What's a four letter word meaning 'Why should it happen to us'? There was never a moment's doubtĪll at once Hecky's jumping and screaming and yelling.I tell you the four letter words that came out! 23 Across: 'Lover (archaic)'.AMORIST!Ĭan you figure it, me with my splendid vocabulary, maybe I should play dumb I'd let him hold the pencil, he could write in the word.Īnd when he was having trouble spelling TRYST. He'd say, 'Hon, what's a pustule?' And I'd say 'It's a BLOT.' Īll the times we had fun here, when more often than not. Where is Hecky now? Ha! He ran off with some floozy on a boat bound for warmer climes.Īnd he left me here doing the crossword puzzle in the Sunday. Why, when Hecky and me used to breeze through the puzzle, on Sundays, the answer would leap in my harte. What's a five letter word meaning.here's an example.2 Down: 'A Peruvian poison dart.' I am staring at squares, but my eyes never focus and my mind's feeling strangely numb. I am sitting here doing the Sunday Times crossword puzzle, somehow the words won't come. Lyricists therefore become acutely aware of the intricacies of words, their multiple meanings, their diversity of definitions, pronunciations, spelling.

You have to say what you want in exactly the right syllables and often with the accents or emphasis predetermined. Lyric writing involves the technical manipulation of language.

I think there is a connection between cryptic puzzle and lyrics. The Nation has an interesting interview with him, in which he talks of commonalities between cryptic crossword setting and lyric writing.

of Starting Here, Starting Now is also a cryptic crossword setter - he has been creating puzzles for Harper's Magazine since 1976 and for New York magazine before that. The theatre director/lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. The lyrics are also extremely clever in playing upon word meanings when the solver's musings segue into the clues.īut of course. In true cryptic tradition, this song isn't what it seems at the start – the simple act of filling words into the grid slowly and fitfully reveals a tale of melancholy and anger. The song is 'Crossword Puzzle' from the 1977 off-Broadway musical revue Starting Here, Starting Now. United health group interview questions.A crossword solver tells us in song why the words in the Sunday Times puzzle elude her today.

Track act x word clue