Solvers gave November’s puzzle the highest rating this year, both in terms of difficulty (an average of 3.86 out of 5) and how much they liked it (an average of 4.28 stars out of 5). Quite a few solvers lost their perfect year-to-date records on this puzzle, failing to find the Fleetwood Mac song that was the meta answer.

The 32 solvers who got the right answer realized that each line in the grid has a word from the lyrics hidden in one of the answers. Putting them together in order gives WON’T YOU LAY ME DOWN IN THE TALL GRASS AND LET ME DO MY STUFF, part of the chorus of Second Hand News, the first song off of “Rumours.”

You didn’t need to know the song to get the answer. As Ertchin writes, THE TALL GRASS jumped out at me fairly quickly, and Google took me the rest of the way. Nicely done.

Some more solver praise:

Chris Popp writes Wow! Loved it. This is redemption for me after missing last month’s. Just got my copy of Rumours over the summer. I can hear the opening guitar strum now. Thanks – an awesome aha moment.

weijus writes How the HECK did you manage that?  It wasn’t easy! I did have to use a 17×15 grid instead of the normal 15×15 one.

Alex Bourzutschky gives it an Awesome! while mega-meta solver Vraal writes That is an extremely beautiful construction, with almost all of the veiled words coming through very naturally and in order!

The comment that put the biggest smile on my face (since I’m such a huge Gaffney fan) was Neil‘s:  Brilliant puzzle. Very well done. As much as I love Gaffney’s puzzles, I think I may prefer yours because of the music connection.

In case you need reminding, googling is always encouraged when trying to solve a meta.

Groaners:

FrotzNPL rewrote the lyrics to the song:

When the contest gets hard
And my brain won’t buzz
Won’t you give me a hint to the meta
And help me solve your .puz
I’m just a second-rate solver I’m just a second-rate solver

Both Golem and Stribbs wondered if “Let me pet my sax” was part of the lyric based on the bottom three grid rows.

By the way, I use people’s screen names when quoting comments. If you want me to use your real name, just sign your comment with your real name. If you don’t want me to share the comment in the write-up, please let me know that as well.

This month’s randomly selected winner of an MMMM coffee mug is Justin Weinbaum from Pittsburgh, PA.

I’m really glad people enjoyed this one – thanks for your great feedback! And thanks to Matt Gaffney who is blogging the puzzle at Crossword Fiend.

There’s still lots of time to enter the Crossword Construction Contest – you can give it a try here. I will be accepting submissions until December 20 and you can enter more than once.

The next MMMM will be coming your way on Tuesday December 3 at noon. Thanks for playing!