Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Puzzle solution: chemistry and rock bands

To solve this puzzle, the bold font at the beginning of each word had to trigger a memory of something hanging on the wall of your high school chemistry classroom: the periodic table of elements.

LEAD IRON NICKEL
Then, assuming you remembered what element each abbreviation stood for (or you googled it), you had to do a little word association. For example, one of the few synonyms for "blimp" is "zeppelin" (remember the Hindenburg?). Combine that with the element whose abbreviation is in the word, and you get...



In fact, Led Zeppelin's name came from a prediction by Keith Moon (drummer for The Who) that the band would "go over like a lead balloon." And their first album had a drawing of the Hindenburg disaster on the front cover. I don't think anybody knows what happened to the "a" in "lead."

Anyhow, keeping "iron" in mind and working off the clue "female" will lead you to...

Yes, Iron Maiden, the British heavy metal band, popular in the 1980s, who had quite the penchant for disturbingly grisly imagery. My good friend in high school, Stewart, was a fan and had a collection of Iron Maiden black t-shirts, including one showing a skull being broken open with a spoon like a soft-boiled egg. Yegch.

The third one was the trickiest for me to come up with, and you had to notice that chemical symbol for nickel is backwards. Also, the word "invert" might help lead your mind to...



So there you have it, three bands with chemical elements in their names. I tried to think of more, but nothing else readily came to mind. I love Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, but Agmmunition seemed like a bit of a stretch.

The winner is lincolnlogger. Honorable mention goes to my sister Melinda, who was the first to solve it.

4 comments:

Stu said...

I wish I still had that t-shirt. I think I put it in a donation box for Deseret Industries years back. I wonder if they even tried to sell it?

Lincolnlogger said...

Yay me!

Lessie Louie said...

The manager for Led Zeppelin told them they should drop the "a" in "lead" because he thought it would make Americans (who may not have been familiar with the term "lead zeppelin," which I think was used generally in the British rock community at the time to mean a gig that didn't go over so well) pronounce it like the verb "to lead." That's the story I read, anyway, but you might not want to trust rock history coming from a violist.

LL said...

Dizzying intellect. :-) I got the reference to the periodic table and knew each element, but that was about where my brain power petered out.

Awesome puzzle!