New York Times, Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Determining which car-related songs to include in this puzzle was the biggest challenge in constructing it.

First, the song titles had to have 15 letters or fewer to fit, so despite trying as hard as I could, I had to leave out "Little Red Corvette" by Prince. (Unfortunately, I couldn't split it symmetrically because LITTLE RED has 9 letters, and CORVETTE has 8.)

Second, the songs had to be iconic enough to be recognizable to the puzzle-solving audience, so I couldn't scour the "Car Talk" archives on NPR for any of the humorous deep cuts Tom and Ray used as bumper music.

Finally, I wanted the songs to mention cars explicitly in the title, so sorry, Boss, but I didn't include "Born to Run" despite its great lyrics like "chrome wheel, fuel-injected, and stepping out over the line."

Considering the limitations, I'm happy with the four songs that made the cut, especially one of my favorite songs ever — "Fast Car".

The BADASS UGLY TRUTH is that even this pop music moron enjoyed the AUTOTUNE pun. I can't help groovin' in my seat when LOW RIDER plays, and although the other songs are only vaguely familiar, they're undoubtedly tunes about autos. AUTOTUNE, indeed!

I appreciated reading about Drew's in-depth thought process. There are so many songs about cars that picking four random ones with any car-related lyric would have felt loosey-goosey.

His second point is not straightforward. "Iconic" is a great goal. But iconic to who? It'd be great if a database of songs existed with how familiar they are to what percentage of NYT crossword solvers. Even then, though, do you want to play to the current data or push toward more inclusion? It's a tricky set of questions with no right answers.

Although I didn't know LITTLE RED CORVETTE, it's possible to stack themers, like LITTLE RED 9 in row three and CORVETTE 8 offset in row four. Not easy, but it's worth considering, especially if you already have an 8 to match part of it, like LOW RIDER.

Great cluing touches; so important to entertain the music curmudgeons out there. You're a bebop purist? Maybe you'll appreciate the jazzy riff that Turkey (the country, not the food) is on top of SYRIA. Classical snob? You might enjoy learning a classic bit of trivia, that KALE is aptly rich in vitamin K.

Although the theme concept had two strikes against me — not only do I have a huge knowledge gap in popular music, but I care so little about cars that my neighbor thought my 2005 Honda Civic belonged to a homeless person (sadly true) — the wordplay still got my motor running.