Radio (, Radio) Puzzle

[QuikSand]

So, in the car recently... listening to the radio (which I really don't do all that often)... and a song I like a bit, by an artist I like a good bit, comes on: Accidents will Happen, by Elvis Costello.

I cringe in response, triggered. I let out an audible "ugh" as I change the station.

Why?

[thesloppy]

Is it being used in an ad?

[JPhillips]

Is it used by a right-wing talk show host?

[MIJB#19]

They skipped the intro (or you missed it)?

[Vince, Pt. II]

It was the live version of the song, not the studio recording.

[albionmoonlight]

I feel like the song itself and the artist himself are part of the puzzle.

I kind of like thesloppy's idea. If it is a sort of tasteless ad for the morning after pill or something . . .

[albionmoonlight]

Dola:

Or maybe the DJ somehow confused Elvis with the other Elvis? I can see that triggering Q, but why would he change the channel, assuming he still liked the song?

[QuikSand]

X X X X

I like both Elvii a fair bit. Definitely like this one. And in concept I like the song.

[Carman Bulldog]

A. You've suffered a breakup with a spouse/significant other in which infidelity was a factor and they (or perhaps you) claimed that it was an "accident"; or

B. You had literally just been involved in a collision.

[QuikSand]

X X

Nothing to do with tangential/evocative meanings of the song or its lyrics... though this is definitely the only song of his that could inspire this reaction from me, i'm confident.

[QuikSand]

In standard puzzle-writing form, I have indeed embedded a decent hint in the puzzle as written above, trying to do so cagily enough to keep it from standing out as such (that's the art of it).

[JPhillips]

Was it a cover by a different artist?

[albionmoonlight]

Was he listening to the radio because he had just broken his phone in an accident, so he could not listen to Spotify or whatever. And so the “accidents will happen” title was annoying.

[QuikSand]

X X

[Bobble]

So you had better do as you are told. You better listen to the radio.

[Solecismic]

There's so many things it could be (but the parentheses make me pause). There's so many references in puzzles, and I just can't find the cause.

[AlexB]

Someone has sampled it into another song that you didn’t like?

[NobodyHere]

You just had a car accident?

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

(which I really don't do all that often)

This is, indeed, the subtle clue... like a lot of us, I really don't just listen to the radio in the car all that often like I used to.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Was he listening to the radio because he had just broken his phone in an accident, so he could not listen to Spotify or whatever. And so the “accidents will happen” title was annoying.

This is probably the closest wrong guess so far. (And the puzzle is deliberately non-obvious, possibly too much so)

But... yes, I don't usually listen to the radio because I have moved on to more modern in-car options like plugging a phone into the car audio system.

There's no real-life accident involved, though. But the word "accidents" is itself important to the puzzle.

[cuervo72]

You had the wrong phone?

[CarterNMA]

I don't know your parenting situation, but...

A child in the vehicle just filled their diaper? Or hopefully not, you had just eaten Arby's and couldn't make it home in time and you had the "accident?"

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

There's no real-life accident involved, though. But the word "accidents" is itself important to the puzzle.

For emphasis.

The puzzle does not involve a physical accident, a mistake, a blunder, or anything else along similar lines where the word "Accidents" itself and its meaning is in any way the trigger for me.

This is not the way.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

You had the wrong phone?

Let's go with... the phone I typically use for music in the car is on a car-based charger, and was out of battery life (since I'm still driving a lot less of late), that's why I was using the radio that day.

Not essential to the solution, but if that helps weed out red herrings about the reason why I was just listening to the radio... there it is.

[AnalBumCover]

You drove through a mountainous area, or just out of range of the signal, and got radio static midway through the song.

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by AnalBumCover

You drove through a mountainous area, or just out of range of the signal, and got radio static midway through the song.

That does not fit the fact that it was this song in particular that triggered him, but another Elvis Costello song would not

[albionmoonlight]

I'm ready for a couple hints

(1) Do the lyrics matter?
(2) Was it the Costello studio performance, or was it a cover/live/weird version?

[QuikSand]

Lyrics do not matter, everything you need is in the title

The performance was exactly the same as the one on my uncharged phone

[Maple Leafs]

You were stuck in traffic and really desperately needed to pee and this was not the encouragement you needed in that moment.

[QuikSand]

"Accidents" is the key word

Not its meaning

Its spelling

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by MIJB#19

They skipped the intro (or you missed it)?

For what it's worth, this song has no intro at all... it's just Elvis blurting out "So, I..." and the music comes in with the next syllable. It's a bit jarring, actually.

[Maple Leafs]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

"Accidents" is the key word

Not its meaning

Its spelling

Your wife just left you for somebody who made their fortune helping the Atlantic Coast Conference identify ear nose and throat specialists.

[QuikSand]

brilliant now i have to do some retcon to make this the answer

[albionmoonlight]

Maple Leafs answer is the best answer.

But, continuing to look for the actual answer, I am now wondering if it is how the radio displayed the song: Accidents Will Happen by Elvis Costello from the album Armed Forces (according to Google).

Is there a way that could be displayed/cut off so that it projected a triggering word or phrase?

[spleen1015]

He did spell it “Accidents will Happen” in the original post. Another clue?

[spleen1015]

Axidents

[QuikSand]

A lot of the time, I need to plug in my phone when in the car. I do so using the same cable that I typically use for the in-car backup (old) phone. So, in ordinary times (pre-COVID) I am pretty routinely unplugging and then re-plugging in my car-based music phone.

[panerd]

Was it from this concert?

Elvis Costello, Billy Joel, Sting Join Campaign to Save Birdland - Rolling Stone

[cartman]

the song is performed in 2/3 time

[QuikSand]

The version of the song is not important. It's just the album/single version that would ordinarily be played on the radio.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

(And the puzzle is deliberately non-obvious, possibly too much so)

Well, thus much is pretty clear at this point. Sorry, I suppose.

Here's a recap of what has come from me, with some emphasis on what is worth paying particular attention to:

Originally Posted by QuikSand

This is probably the closest wrong guess so far.

But... yes, I don't usually listen to the radio because I have moved on to more modern in-car options like plugging a phone into the car audio system.

There's no real-life accident involved, though. But the word "accidents" is itself important to the puzzle.

Originally Posted by QuikSand

For emphasis.

The puzzle does not involve a physical accident, a mistake, a blunder, or anything else along similar lines where the word "Accidents" itself and its meaning is in any way the trigger for me.

This is not the way.

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Let's go with... the phone I typically use for music in the car is on a car-based charger, and was out of battery life (since I'm still driving a lot less of late), that's why I was using the radio that day.

Not essential to the solution, but if that helps weed out red herrings about the reason why I was just listening to the radio... there it is.

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Lyrics do not matter, everything you need is in the title

The performance was exactly the same as the one on my uncharged phone

Originally Posted by QuikSand

"Accidents" is the key word

Not its meaning

Its spelling

Originally Posted by QuikSand

A lot of the time, I need to plug in my phone when in the car. I do so using the same cable that I typically use for the in-car backup (old) phone. So, in ordinary times (pre-COVID) I am pretty routinely unplugging and then re-plugging in my car-based music phone.

Has anyone every been driving or riding in a car, and then plugged in a phone into a combination charger/auxiliary connection? I'm sure there are a variety of things that can happen when you do that... my last two cars (same make) both responded by doing the same thing, though...

[Solecismic]

I thought grammar verb-matching issue, because of the mismatched "there is" and "so many" lines. That would get me if I were listening to the song and knew it came up again later in the song.

Now I'm thinking ODS and that some radios equipped to display FM radio text will simply take data from fields designed to hold larger amounts of information, and truncate it into a smaller format.

From trying to get my son (unsuccessfully) into Arduino, which would have been heaven for me as a kid, I learned something about LCD displays and how they're wired. You have to hard-code things that these days programmers just slap into convenient string classes that do all the work for you.

So, maybe, with the standard FM Radio Text interpreter with a car (since these displays are always around 25-26 characters, you get "Accidents Will Happen(by E" or something along those lines.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

Has anyone every been driving or riding in a car, and then plugged in a phone into a combination charger/auxiliary connection? I'm sure there are a variety of things that can happen when you do that... my last two cars (same make) both responded by doing the same thing, though...

...mine just decides that since you plugged in a device that has music on it (setting aside its other functions) then you must have meant you wanted to play music. And so it turns off whatever music/audio mode that may have been on at the time, and instead...

[panerd]

This seems to becoming less of a puzzle and more of guess what happened to Quiksand.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

...mine just decides that since you plugged in a device that has music on it (setting aside its other functions) then you must have meant you wanted to play music. And so it turns off whatever music/audio mode that may have been on at the time, and instead...

...it decides that I must want to play music. And since I have not given it any clues on what music I wanted to play, it just chooses...

[albionmoonlight]

The alphabetically first song . . . ?

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

The alphabetically first song . . . ?

Yup.

And it starts with an abrupt "OH, I..." and after hearing that at least fifty times in the car, it hits me pretty hard. Partially because it's hella annoying, but also it typically means I need to go meddle with some car audio settings, etc.

Anyway... that's it. It's the alphabetically first song on my phone contents. So I hear it A TON and am fully sick of it.

[QuikSand]

And, all told... sorry this was far too hard. It's difficult to tell as a puzzle author how much to offer within the puzzle without giving it away. I pretty clearly missed the mark here, so apologies to those who followed along.

[cuervo72]

Alphabetically first on my old/car phone:



(I have not d/l any music to my new phone.)

edit: seems like a fun exercise but too lazy to make a new thread

[panerd]

Mine wouldn't bother me much but come to think of it, it does play more than others!