1953 Eddie Fisher hit / MON 2-14-11 / Big name in stunt bikes / 1962 Ray Charles hit / 1995 Hootie Blowfish hit

Constructor: Victor Fleming and Lynn Lempel

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: YOU (62D: Object of affection in 17-, 25-, 47- and 61-Across) — theme answers are song titles that span the grid, but each title is missing its final word: "YOU"


Word of the Day: "GIRL I'M GONNA MISS YOU" (47A: "___ 62-Down" (1989 Milli Vanilli hit)) —

"Girl I'm Gonna Miss You" is a song recorded by Milli Vanilli and released as a single in 1989 off the album Girl You Know It's True. The single was a big success, hitting the #1 spot on American and European charts. (wikipedia)

• • •

I'm not feeling the Valentininess of this one. YOU is ... missing. But then it's there. Down there. I get that they are all love songs — at least I assume they are; "I'M WALKING BEHIND YOU" song sounds pretty stalker. But why cut YOU out? Conceptually, that move doesn't say "love" to me. It says break-up or death or something other than happy union. This puzzle was also weirdly uneven, in that All the difficulty lay in the song titles. Puzzle compensated for that relative toughness by making the rest of the grid mind-numbingly easy. So my time was normal, but the experience was not smooth. Plus I got the idea right away, with the first theme answer, so there was no reveal or aha moment or anything. Just "Missing YOU," which was a big John Waite song, which would have made a Nice revealer on a puzzle like this. The Stones' "Miss You" might have worked too. Then you could've ditched the painful-to-remember Milli Vanilli song to avoid repeating the "MISS." But no. Songs themselves aren't a very impressive lot. In order, I would rate them good, ???, "ow, my ears!," and yawn.

Theme answers:

• 17A: "___ 62-Down" (1962 Ray Charles hit) ("I CAN'T STOP LOVING")

• 25A: "___ 62-Down" (1953 Eddie Fisher hit) ("I'M WALKING BEHIND")

• 47A: "___ 62-Down" (1989 Milli Vanilli hit) ("GIRL I'M GONNA MISS")

• 61A: "___ 62-Down" (1995 Hootie & the Blowfish hit) ("ONLY WANNA BE WITH YOU")

Not much else to say. Had to slog through the first couple titles by crosses, and then wrestled a bit with the spelling on the Hootie song, but otherwise, it all went down quickly. I liked LUNCH BOX (40D: Carrier of a sandwich, soda and cookies, say). Wife questioned the clue on BMX (68A: Big name in stunt bikes), since the sport itself is called BMX (bicycle motocross). Is BMX a brand of bike as well? I know it's a type ... "name" just seems odd.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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