pmxwords

2025 Mega-Meta: “Don’t Lose That Number” Solution

The 2025 mega-meta challenged solvers to find a song from the ’90s. This puzzle, the mega-meta reveal, uses a similar mechanism, but puts it all in one puzzle.

A total of 13 Across entries are duplicated in other clues in the grid, normally something that’s a major offense in crossword construction. 6-Across (CLUB), for instance, appears in the clue for 6-Down (CADDIE) of [Club carrier]. These “offending” Across entries are all clued as part of a song by an artist whose name contains a number, the first of which is CLUB clued as [“In Da ___” (50 Cent song)].

The first letters of these entries, in grid order, spell out Counting Crows. But the prompt asks for a song, not a band, so which Counting Crows song is it?

The second step involves cross-referencing the numbers in the artists’ names with the numbered squares in the grid. For instance, CLUB, whose clue contains “50 Cent,” corresponds to the square numbered 50 in the grid, which contains an “A.” Doing this for all 13 entries, in order, spells out A-L-O-N-G-D-E-C-E-M-B-E-R, yielding this year’s mega-meta, the Counting Crows hit A Long December.

All of this is summarized in the table below:

Click + to see the relevant entries and clues in this puzzle.

CLUB Club carrier “In Da ___” (50 Cent song) A
OVER Is over the moon about “It’s ___” (Level 42 song) L
UNTIL Last prez without a prior political office until Trump “___ the End of the World” (U2 song) O
NEXT Bone next to the tibia and fibula “___ Semester” (Twenty One Pilots song) N
TENDER Pork cut known for its tender texture “Legal ___” (B-52s song) G
INTO Entice, as fish into a net “Rockin’ ___ the Night” (38 Special song) D
NOT Not prone to mistakes “Superman (It’s ___ Easy)” (Five for Fighting song) E
GONE Pittypat, to Melanie, in “Gone With the Wind” “When I’m ___” (3 Doors Down song) C
COLD It may undergo vasoconstriction in the cold Maroon 5 song E
RESCUE “___ to the rescue with love and peace will follow”: River Phoenix “___ Me” (Thirty Seconds to Mars song) M
ONLY Mumford & ___ (“Only Love” band) Nine Inch Nails song B
WANT Excited reply to “Do any of you want ice cream?” “___ You Back” (5 Seconds of Summer song) E
STEAL Like the urge to steal, for a kleptomaniac “___ My Girl” (One Direction song) R

 

The same mechanism was embedded in the 12 “regular-season” MMMM puzzles, with an additional layer. Each puzzle contained one entry (or, in the case of December’s puzzle, two) that was duplicated in another clue. This mechanism was hinted at in the December puzzle, where the clue for NEVER was the awkward [Word between “Angels” and “Call” in a ’Til Tuesday song title … or how often a crossword constructor should use a word that’s in the grid as part of a clue, typically]. The clues for these entries that duplicated a clue word also contained the name of a musical artist; but instead of containing actual numbers, these artists’ names included the homophone of a number, as shown in the table below. Congratulations to the 41 people who caught on early and solved the mega-meta before this reveal puzzle came out, earning bonus points and increasing their chances to make it to the Grand Prize drawing. First was Louis Lana in May, followed by Danny K Bernstein and Brent Holman later that month. Impressive!

Click + to see the relevant regular-season entries and clues.

SWEET MEAD: [Sweet libation] “___ Touch of Love” (Allen Toussaint song) 2 A
ORLANDO EPCOT: [Attraction near Orlando] Bloom for Katy Perry? 80 L
URGENT GO GO: [Urgent cry from a third-base coach, perhaps] 1981 Foreigner hit that topped the
Billboard Mainstream Rock chart		 4 O
NIXON ARIA: [“Nixon in China” highlight] He’s mocked by Arlo Guthrie in “Presidential Rag” 3 N
DATE MIXER: [Place to find a date, maybe] “Cheap ___” (1980 Tommy Tutone single) 2 G
SOMEONE ERIK SATIE: [The melody from his first “Gymnopédie”
was used in the chorus of Janet Jackson’s “Someone to Call My Lover”]		 “A gentleman is ___ who can play
the accordion, but doesn’t” (quip attributed to Tom Waits)		 8 D
LISA TOO: [“___ Fast Driving” (Lisa Loeb song)] Lita Ford song dedicated to her mother 4 E
INDIA ALES: [“India pale” brews] ___.Arie (Stevie Wonder’s duet partner
on “The Christmas Song”)		 1 C
KEEP SECURE: [Keep safe] “___ Ya Head Up” (Tupac Shakur song) 2 E
EYES TAW: [Laid eyes on, to Tweety] “In Your ___” (Peter Gabriel hit on which Tony Levin played bass) 11 M
ARMS AEGIS: [Athena’s coat of arms?] “Brothers in ___” (Dire Straits album) 8 B
NEVER RENT: [What landlords never pay] Word between “Angels” and “Call” in a ’Til Tuesday song title … or how often a crossword constructor should use a word that’s in the grid as part of a clue, typically 2 E
OIL TUG: [Boat that might move an oil rig] “___ Spot” (Nate Smith song) 8 R

 

The first letters of the entries whose clues duplicate entries spell out “MEGA-META START.” The first letters of the duplicated entries spell out “SOUNDS LIKE A NO.” Since “no.” can be an abbreviation for “number,” this is a hint to read the clues aloud and look for the numbers phonetically hidden within the artist names. The letters occupying the 13 squares containing these homophonic numbers spell out “A Long December.”

This year’s red herring was not directly revealed in the mega-meta reveal puzzle, as we simply couldn’t get it into the grid given how much other material we had to fit! But the first four puzzles of the year each contained an entry whose clue began with the word “Homophone,” as shown below:

Click + to reveal the red herring clues.

FORE Homophone of the number of homophonic three-letter entries in this grid
IDLE Homophone of the colloquial name of a popular singing show
SOLE Homophone of Aretha Franklin’s musical genre
HARE Homophone of something found on most heads

 

The first letters of these entries spell out FISH, which is in turn a homophone of the rock band Phish, this year’s red herring.

 

Mega-Meta Song:

This was a fun song to learn. And it has been a long December!

 

 

Selected Solver Comments:

Danny K Bernstein   OH MY GOD

Streroto   Tough grid. Once done meta is easy. Wow this must have been TOUGH to construct!!! Very impressive.

damefox   An apt metaphor for the annual mega meta if ever there was one.

Rocklouder2424   One of my favorite songs from the 90s! And, one of my favorite (and most difficult to solve) megas!

michaelm   Tony Levin for the win!

Naptown Kid   Thanks for another year of great music and puzzles. Here’s to continuing the tradition in the New Year.

Jonesy   People getting this in May are absolute lunatics.

Byrdy   Got stuck on Perry. Thought it was K8Y, just realized it was K80. Wow, so so clever.

 

Alternative Music Clues:

Evan    suggests cluing COLA as [“Rock and roller ___ wars” (reference to the historical battle between soda brands in the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire”)], NAST as [“Trillmatic” rapper ASAP ___], and MINEO as [Hip-hop artist and producer Andy].

 

Groaners:

Gwinns   I found the dupes in like May, but I never thought to look at the original clues for the duped entries! More like A Long D’OH!-cember.

Mikey G   I guess that counts! (I won’t crow about it, though.)

mattyx   I didn’t h8 it but I for 1 was 2 confused. Since I got it, all is 4given

 

Totals this month:

158 correct (41 before this puzzle), 77 incorrect

Rating:  4.54 out of 5 stars (4.64 from early solvers)

Difficulty:  3.71 out of 5 (4.39 from early solvers)

Red Herring solvers: 109

Monthly mug winner: William Cheng from Redmond, WA

Thanks to Ben Chenoweth for filling in for Matt Gaffney and blogging the puzzle at Crossword Fiend, where you can rate the puzzle (thanks!) and/or leave a comment.

Thanks to Tamara Brenner for the graphic.

 

2025 MMMM Puzzles
(Click images to enlarge)