12
$\begingroup$

This is a revival attempt of the Fortnightly Topic Challenge.


Easter is coming, time to hide some Easter eggs. As you probably know programmers hide them in program code. This type of Easter eggs usually does something completely unrelated to the actual purpose of the affected software. Below you can see the prototype of such an Easter egg in Python, which is supposed to print the lyrics of a song. Of course it shouldn't be too obvious what the code is doing, therefore I used some completely meaningless groups of numbers and letters to represent the structure of the song. Each group would be translated to the actual song text using a dictionary located somewhere else. Unfortunately this dictionary got lost, the one below only includes some examples which don't occur in the song itself. I could of course recreate this dictionary from the song text, if I could only remember which song it was. I need your help to identify it.

dict = {
    "TT5134622": "very important",
    "38.9567,-78.8048": "was never made",
    "BEA074B7-1EF6-44B8-80F7-B2F7FF3F6EC0": "it's supposed to be",
}

def decode(s):
    t = " ".join([dict.get(a, a) for a in s.split(" ")])
    print(t[0].upper() + t[1:])

def song(id):
    if id == "subpart1":
        decode("A6DFA780-4D74-4C59-A356-BFE549D32D17 1F6CF 36.2469,-116.8169")
        decode("A6DFA780-4D74-4C59-A356-BFE549D32D17 1F6CF 33.9418,-118.4085")
    elif id == "subpart2":
        decode("47.9529,-91.9714 1-891396-81-1 47.9529,-91.9714 TT0493464")
        decode("TT0446059 34.0555,-118.2498")
        decode("77B3DA14-B08C-445E-9CCF-F795DB7BD11A 1-891396-81-1 77B3DA14-B08C-445E-9CCF-F795DB7BD11A TT0493464")
        decode("2661 79FF6537-4966-4872-AECC-15B58B390C8D 262E")
        song("subpart1")
        decode("A6DFA780-4D74-4C59-A356-BFE549D32D17 1F6CF")
        decode("TT2066951 AED7737E-1DC6-4B90-BBDE-4B924DF0E347")
        decode("2323 1F0CF TT0732174")
        decode("TT2070472 6EB9B81D-B3D6-4BE5-9A5D-BB0CF7B57605")
        decode("-4.0665,37.7485 D44264CA-EEE0-427F-B0D9-8409D47CF36F")
        decode("41.1514,-73.8680 1-4767-8472-8")
        song("subpart1")
    elif id == "part1":
        song("part2")
    elif id == "part2":
        decode("1F426 2208 37.8266,-122.4228")
        decode("1DA39 933E2077-EB50-4EA4-BEA0-1A111AC61B94 23.4359,-109.4265")
        decode("1F333 50.5184,-92.2867 #0000FF")
        decode("2605 51.3809,-2.3595 -90.0000,0.0000 1F341")
        decode("1F4A4 45.1609,-112.9921 2665")
        decode("TT0786245 9CCAAD7C-06FD-4E21-993B-40C5BCE684E0 55.7813,-118.8414")
        decode("45E69B74-BC74-490B-BF8F-54FFBB6FFC4A 42.2817,-89.0952 1F40E")
        decode("0-330-23457-9 1000000000 5E0D2F79-9C17-46B5-BC9B-C061785A485C")
        song("subpart2")
        decode("#191970 2708 7EEBC44F-D79D-4C2D-B4B4-6AA7BDAA16AF")
        decode("51.5060,-0.1324 #FFC0CB 3C0EF08C-A3C9-4E7B-90E2-268E0A51F47B")
        decode("261B TT1136608 TT0120907")
        decode("TT4006594 C0CF3D76-21B5-35AB-959F-97A735E6C79E 1F497")
        song("subpart2")
        song("part3")
    elif id == "part3":
        decode("TT0038011 34.0555,-118.2498")
        decode("TT1509677 6CE89762-8B5E-4A97-AB89-6ECF60D447B2 #1,2,3")
        decode("0-06-061161-8 965E31EF-B9DA-4C1E-BD91-EC89BF7B2F03 #000000")
        decode("#000000 TT0093692 35.5000,-40.8000")
        decode("43.8986,-110.7588 F84C6A70-48E0-3BB1-B01A-07A93D60BFF2 TT4524662 45.4311,-122.3737")
        decode("24.5464,-81.7975 TT0087727 1F6AA")
        decode("0-06-061161-8 0-8129-7869-2 #000000")
        decode("#000000 TT0093692 35.5000,-40.8000")
        song("subpart1")
        song("subpart1")
        song("part4")
    elif id == "part4":
        # TODO: finish this later
        pass

song("part1")

For some reason syntax highlighting is disabled on Puzzling.SE. This version might be easier to read.

Your answer must contain the song title, the band name and optionally the album title. You don't need to recreate the dictionary, but you must explain why your answer is correct.

Hints (including the ones from the comments):

- I had the idea for this puzzle while watching the blu-ray of a concert which was performed a couple of years ago near a well known village in Germany.
- This song was probably never played by a mainstream radio station.
- The album where this song is from won a gold award in several European countries.
- If the hints don't seem to make sense, try to interpret them differently, use your imagination.
- Some say this band would change their female lead vocalist more often than their underwear.
- Hints found in the answers below are usually synonyms for words/phrases occurring in the song. In rare cases, where synonyms don't work, they contain a direct reference to the word in question.

$\endgroup$
28
  • 3
    $\begingroup$ @question_asker Most likely you won't hear it played by most radio stations, but the album won a gold award in several european countries. $\endgroup$
    – Sleafar
    Mar 23, 2016 at 12:26
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ 23.4359,-109.4265 and others look like latitude and longitude. Maybe the place at those locations contains a hint to what word goes there? $\endgroup$ Mar 24, 2016 at 0:32
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Seems to be a song about someone who loves waving at beds. $\endgroup$
    – BenM
    Mar 24, 2016 at 12:12
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Assuming, part1, calling part2 without doing anything means, there is only music(no words/just instrumental) going on over there. $\endgroup$
    – Lafexlos
    Mar 24, 2016 at 12:44
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @Sleafar - can you clarify your "opposite of" classification? Are you saying the fact that "Meaningless" => "very important" is not representative of other similar lookups? $\endgroup$
    – Alconja
    Mar 25, 2016 at 11:30

4 Answers 4

8
+100
$\begingroup$

The song is

Song of Myself, by Nightwish

The lyrics are as follows ("code" number $\rightarrow$ "codeword" translations courtesy of Lafexlos's answer):

Bird ElementOf Alcatraz

The nightingale is still locked in the cage

BreathInhale Toxic CaboPulmo

The deep breath I took still poisons my lungs

Tree CoverLake Blue

An old oak sheltering me from the blue

BlackStar TheRomanBaths SouthPole MapleLeaf

Sun bathing on its dead frozen leaves

Sleep Bannack (a ghost town) Heart(Black)

A catnap in the ghost town of my heart

Morpheus TimeforaTale SpiritRiverHighway

She dreams of storytime and the river ghosts

RedLedorDeath (by Mermaid) ElementarySchool Horse

Of mermaids, of Whitman’s and the Ride

TheMysteriousMrQuin ABillion ZapMyWorld

Raving harlequins, gigantic toys

ChantLakeMinnesota TheEgoandtheId ChantLakeMinnesota Wanted

A song of me a song in need

Fearless ConcertHall

Of a courageous symphony

Stanza TheEgoandtheId Stanza Wanted

A verse of me a verse in need

Heart(White) HYMM Peace

Of a pure-heart singing me to peace

AnotherWave (by Heavy Heart) Bed DeathValley

All that great heart lying still and slowly dying

AnotherWave (by Heavy Heart) Bed Angel

All that great heart lying still on an angelwing

OK this is very long so I'm leaving it here for now; I'll make a few changes to the way the clues were interpreted

HINTS:

  • "I had the idea for this puzzle while watching the blu-ray of a concert which was performed a couple of years ago near a well known village in Germany."
  • "This song was probably never played by a mainstream radio station."

Nightwish is a metal band, which is not a genre that gets a lot of airplay. Wacken Open Air festival is a metal festival that's been held near Wacken, Germany since 1990. Nightwish was one of the headlining bands at the 2013 show, and the Blu-Ray in question is Showtime, Storytime.

  • The album where this song is from won a gold award in several European countries.
  • If the hints don't seem to make sense, try to interpret them differently, use your imagination.

Possibly (most probably) a reference to the album title, Imaginaerum

  • Some say this band would change their female lead vocalist more often than their underwear.

Nightwish have had three female lead vocalists over the course of their bandship (pic)

For the sake of completeness,

Song of Myself could be interpreted as "recursive" due to the reflexive pronoun

$\endgroup$
7
  • $\begingroup$ Finally. ;) While creating the puzzle I realized that 2 words from the song are enough to google it, therefore I tried to obfuscate it. Apparently I overshoot the mark a little. $\endgroup$
    – Sleafar
    Mar 25, 2016 at 15:24
  • $\begingroup$ @Sleafar I am leaving it as-is for the time being - there are a lot of lyrics, and I sort of feel like if I clean this up a tiny bit, it should be enough to convince most people it's the right answer (and I'll add stuff about your hints) $\endgroup$ Mar 25, 2016 at 15:26
  • $\begingroup$ Finally. Good job, really. Now I can be free of my obsession. $\endgroup$
    – Lafexlos
    Mar 25, 2016 at 15:27
  • $\begingroup$ No need to post all the lyrics, it should be clear how the rest woks, after some of the hints are corrected. $\endgroup$
    – Sleafar
    Mar 25, 2016 at 15:27
  • $\begingroup$ OK, there's the final product (unless I see something else that needs to be changed). Also, I have credited @Lafexlos for his or her hard work on giving us "codeword" translations. $\endgroup$ Mar 25, 2016 at 15:40
10
$\begingroup$

Yet another non-answer.

After the hints, I am almost sure this is from Wacken 2012 (couple years ago -- in Germany -- not so played genre in radios).

Colors

#0000FF = Blue 
#FFC0CB = Pink
#191970 = Midnight Blue 
#000000 = Black

About #1,2,3, counting made much more sense than my previous one. Thanks to @question_asker

IMDB Links

tt0786245 -- Morpheus
tt0493464 -- Wanted
tt0446059 -- Fearless (Original Title: Huo yuanjia)
tt2066951 -- Quiet
tt0732174 -- The Show Must Not Go On
tt2070472 -- What Remains
tt1136608 -- District 9
tt0120907 -- eXistenZ
tt4006594 -- The Offer
tt0038011 -- Quiet Please!
tt1509677 -- Pointless
tt0093692 -- Over the Top
tt4524662 -- Stanza 17
tt0087727 -- Missing in Action

Musicbrainz.org Links

bea074b7-1ef6-44b8-80f7-b2f7ff3f6ec0 - Ambiguous
A6DFA780-4D74-4C59-A356-BFE549D32D17 - Another Wave
77B3DA14-B08C-445E-9CCF-F795DB7BD11A - Stanza
79FF6537-4966-4872-AECC-15B58B390C8D - HYMM
AED7737E-1DC6-4B90-BBDE-4B924DF0E347 - Planescape: Torment
6EB9B81D-B3D6-4BE5-9A5D-BB0CF7B57605 - ...Baby One More Time
D44264CA-EEE0-427F-B0D9-8409D47CF36F - Sonic Reducer
933E2077-EB50-4EA4-BEA0-1A111AC61B94 - Toxic
9CCAAD7C-06FD-4E21-993B-40C5BCE684E0 - Time for a Tale
45E69B74-BC74-490B-BF8F-54FFBB6FFC4A - Red Led or Death
5E0D2F79-9C17-46B5-BC9B-C061785A485C - Zap My World
7EEBC44F-D79D-4C2D-B4B4-6AA7BDAA16AF - Don't Cry to Me Argentina
3C0EF08C-A3C9-4E7B-90E2-268E0A51F47B - Next To Me
C0CF3D76-21B5-35AB-959F-97A735E6C79E - All
6CE89762-8B5E-4A97-AB89-6ECF60D447B2 - Work
965E31EF-B9DA-4C1E-BD91-EC89BF7B2F03 - Heavens
F84C6A70-48E0-3BB1-B01A-07A93D60BFF2 - The Tubes

ISBN of Books

1-891396-81-1 - Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id
1-4767-8472-8 - Pico Iyer, Art of Stillness
0-330-23457-9 - Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Mr Quin
0-06-061161-8 - Frederick Buechner, Now And Then
0-8129-7869-2 - Lisa See, The Interior: A Red Princess Mystery (Red Princess Mysteries)

The plain numbers or numbers with letters up to F are unicode characters. U+CODEHERE. Thanks to @BenM

1F6CF -- Bed emoji,
1F0CF -- Joker emoji etc.

As suggested by @agnesi in comments, I directly replaced word with clues. This is the output.

Bird ElementOf Alcatraz
BreathInhale Toxic CaboPulmo
Tree CoverLake Blue
BlackStar TheRomanBaths SouthPole MapleLeaf
Sleep HangmansGrasshopper Heart(Black)
Morpheus TimeforaTale SpiritRiverHighway
RedLedorDeath ElementarySchool Horse
TheMysteriousMrQuin ABillion ZapMyWorld

ChantLakeMinnesota TheEgoandtheId ChantLakeMinnesota Wanted
Fearless ConcertHall
Stanza TheEgoandtheId Stanza Wanted
Heart(White) HYMM Peace

AnotherWave Bed DeathValley
AnotherWave Bed Angel

AnotherWave Bed
Quiet Planescape:Torment
Smile Joker TheShowMustNotGoOn
WhatRemains BabyOneMoreTime
SameTanzania SonicReducer
SingSing ArtofStillness

AnotherWave Bed DeathValley
AnotherWave Bed Angel

MidnightBlue Airplane Don'tCrytoMeArgentina
TheRoyalSociety Pink NexTToMe
RightPointingIndex District9 eXistenZ
TheOffer All Heart

ChantLakeMinnesota TheEgoandtheId ChantLakeMinnesota Wanted
Fearless ConcertHall
Stanza TheEgoandtheId Stanza Wanted
Heart(White) HYMM Peace

AnotherWave Bed DeathValley
AnotherWave Bed Angel

AnotherWave Bed
Quiet Planescape:Torment
Smile Joker TheShowMustNotGoOn
WhatRemains BabyOneMoreTime
SameTanzania SonicReducer
SingSing ArtofStillness

AnotherWave Bed DeathValley
AnotherWave Bed Angel

QuietPlease! ConcertHall
Pointless Work Counting
NowAndThen Heavens Black
Black OvertheTop AtlanticOcean
EaglesRestPeak TheTubes Stanza17 HighwayBoring
SouthernmostPoint MissinginAction Door
NowAndThen ARedPrincessMystery Black
Black OvertheTop AtlanticOcean

AnotherWave Bed DeathValley
AnotherWave Bed Angel
AnotherWave Bed DeathValley
AnotherWave Bed Angel

If you want to tweak around, this repl.it link contains, lyrics.txt, clues.txt and code to convert. (And yes, code is sloppy and can use a lot of improvements but I don't think that's necessary for now.)

$\endgroup$
15
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Yep, I think those things are unicode characters. You can look them up at unicode-table.com/en. I suspect the plain numbers (e.g. 2605) are unicode characters too, but you need to search for them with a 'U+' in front of them (e.g. 'U+2605'). $\endgroup$
    – BenM
    Mar 24, 2016 at 11:22
  • $\begingroup$ The only keys I'm unsure of now are '#1,2,3' (you gave a couple of explanations but I still think we're missing something) and '1000000000'. Oh, and there's also the little problem that I have no idea how to map those keys to values. $\endgroup$
    – BenM
    Mar 24, 2016 at 11:25
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ Re: #1,2,3 and #010203 - I feel like these could easily be just "counting" within the lyrics $\endgroup$ Mar 24, 2016 at 11:55
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Probably worth mentioning that in the sample dict, the value for the IMDB title "Meaningless" is "very important" which could suggest that we essentially need the 'opposite' of all these clues $\endgroup$
    – SlashmanX
    Mar 24, 2016 at 15:07
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Could the 'Another Wave' clue actually be 'Heavy Heart' (name of the band). Possibly easier to fit into a song. I'm guessing a lot of clues have to be 'worked on' themselves before fitting in $\endgroup$
    – SlashmanX
    Mar 25, 2016 at 11:18
7
$\begingroup$

Another non-answer, but will hopefully help someone.

ASCIIThenANSI mentioned in the comments that several keys look like coordinates. I looked up all the coordinate-looking keys in Google Maps, and it appears that this is indeed the case. Some of them point to locations whose names contain simple words, and others are famous buildings/landmarks.

The sample coordinate entry in the dictionary ("38.9567,-78.8048": "was never made") points to Lost River, West Virginia, USA.

Here are the other coordinates, in the order that they appear in the code (which, of course, isn't the order they appear in the final song):

+--------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| subpart1           |                                                                                                                        |
| 36.2469,-116.8169  | Death Valley, California, USA                                                                                          |
| 33.9418,-118.4085  | Los Angeles International Airport, Los Angeles, California, USA                                                        |
|                    |                                                                                                                        |
| subpart2           |                                                                                                                        |
| 47.9529,-91.9714   | Chant Lake, Minnesota, USA                                                                                             |
| 47.9529,-91.9714   | Chant Lake, Minnesota, USA                                                                                             |
| 34.0555,-118.2498  | Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, USA                                                                 |
| -4.0665,37.7485    | Same, Tanzania                                                                                                         |
| 41.1514,-73.8680   | Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Ossining, New York, USA                                                               |
|                    |                                                                                                                        |
| part2              |                                                                                                                        |
| 37.8266,-122.4228  | Alcatraz, San Francisco, California, USA                                                                               |
| 23.4359,-109.4265  | Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico                                                                                |
| 50.5184,-92.2867   | Cover Lake, Ontario, Canada                                                                                            |
| 51.3809,-2.3595    | The Roman Baths, Bath, UK                                                                                              |
| -90.0000,0.0000    | South Pole, Antarctica                                                                                                 |
| 45.1609,-112.9921  | Bannack State Park (near Hangmans Gulch and Grasshopper Creek), Beaver Country, Montana, USA                           |
| 55.7813,-118.8414  | Spirit River Highway, Spirit River, Alberta, Canada                                                                    |
| 42.2817,-89.0952   | Whitman St (near Wells Park and Haskell Elementary School), Rockford, Illinois, USA                                    |
| 51.5060,-0.1324    | The Royal Society, London, UK                                                                                          |
|                    |                                                                                                                        |
| part3              |                                                                                                                        |
| 34.0555,-118.2498  | Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles, California, USA                                                                 |
| 35.5000,-40.8000   | Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (the nearest land is Azores, Portugal, but that's still pretty far away) |
| 43.8986,-110.7588  | Eagles Rest Peak, Teton County, Wyoming, USA                                                                           |
| 45.4311,-122.3737  | Clackamas-Boring Highway, Boring, Oregon, USA                                                  |
| 24.5464,-81.7975   | Southernmost Point (southernmost spot in continental USA), Key West, Florida, USA                                      |
| 35.5000,-40.8000   | Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean                                                                          |
+--------------------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
$\endgroup$
5
$\begingroup$

For anyone who is interested, there are 78 unique words in this song. The song is sung in the following pattern. Note: If a word is only used once, then it is represented as a '-'. If it is repeated, then it has a letter variable.

 - - - 
 - - - 
 - - - 
 - - - - 
 - - - 
 - - - 
 - - - 
 - - - 
 A B A C 
 D E 
 F B F C 
 G H I 
 J K L 
 J K M 
 J K 
 N O 
 P Q R 
 S T 
 U V 
 W X 
 J K L 
 J K M 
 - - - 
 - - - 
 - - - 
 - - - 
 A B A C 
 D E 
 F B F C 
 G H I 
 J K L 
 J K M 
 J K 
 N O 
 P Q R 
 S T 
 U V 
 W X 
 J K L 
 J K M 
 - E 
 - - - 
 a - b 
 b c d 
 - - - - 
 - - - 
 a - b 
 b c d 
 J K L 
 J K M 
 J K L 
 J K M 

There are 28 words that are used multiple times, and 50 words that are used only once.

I do not listen to European songs, so I doubt I will get it from this. Hopefully this is useful to someone else.

$\endgroup$
9
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ It's worth noting that each of these "words" is probably "phrases", as sampled in the OP's dictionary. $\endgroup$ Mar 23, 2016 at 13:24
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Judging by what I see here, the song appears to be in the standard "verse, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, verse, out-tro" format. $\endgroup$ Mar 23, 2016 at 13:26
  • $\begingroup$ @Khale_Kitha Perhaps they are phrases, but if you look at the word count of some common songs, (Rhianna, Hopeless place only has 209 words) it is possible that these are in fact words. This song would have 153 words if they were words instead of phrases. $\endgroup$
    – Trenin
    Mar 23, 2016 at 13:33
  • $\begingroup$ @Khale_Kitha I notice J K L / J K M is repeated quite a bit. My guess is that that part fades out at the end. $\endgroup$ Mar 24, 2016 at 0:23
  • $\begingroup$ @Khale_Kitha Also, the dictionary keys don't actually appear in the song. So I would say each key is supposed to be a word. $\endgroup$ Mar 24, 2016 at 0:28

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