This week Carole King, Diane Warren, and the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt — all of whom appear on the New York Times' hotly-debated new list of the 30 Greatest Living American Songwriters — each wrote five-by-five mini puzzles for the publication's digital crossword section. Jeff Tweedy, despite admirably voting for himself, did not make the list. He did, however, get to write a full-sized crossword puzzle for the Times' monthly bonus game.
By his own admission, Tweedy has long been a "massive crossword puzzle nut." As the Wilco frontman mentioned in his latest Substack update: "As an addict, you have to remind yourself that you’re still an addict, even when you’re aren’t doing things that are terrible for you. Crossword puzzles are a pretty benign outlet for an addictive tendency, in my opinion." His Times crossword is titled "My Life Was Saved By Rock ’N’ Roll," and the clues explicitly reference rock legends throughout the decades like the Velvet Underground, Keith Richards, New York Dolls, Johnny Cash, David Bowie, Sex Pistols, and Bill Callahan. And yes, there's at least one Wilco-related clue, too.
In an accompanying video interview with the Times' games editor Christina Iverson, Tweedy talked about how writing songs equipped him for writing a crossword: "I think putting a song together and finding the right word to express what you want to say succinctly or with clarity, that can feel like putting a puzzle together sometimes. But the difference obviously is that there’s no right answer for a song, really, and there definitely is one for a crossword puzzle." See that below.
