The interior layer of this word search (19x19 grid) comprised mainly of lyrics - or subjects - from the Billy Joel classic "We Didn't Start the Fire." The first step was to find all of these subjects (and yes, there was a Nixon "back again").
That left - in the interior grid - three rather peculiar phrases: ROOFHALFSKIPPED, NOTMINI, and HARMONICAGE. It also left some random letters that could be, well, anagrammed into ANAGRAMS. Little side note here: It appears very few, if any, searchers fell for a little trick, where if you missed the reverse-down-diagonal MARILYN, you might have read HARMONICAGE as HARMONICA (with a leftover G & E), which would have left (rather plausibly, I thought) ANAGRAM GAMES.
From here, keen observers were meant to discover that the three peculiar phrases were not instructions, per se, but rather anagrams of song subjects, by a different name. Doris Day became her given name DORISKAPPELHOFF; Pope Paul became (part of) his given name MONTINI; and Rocky Marciano became his given (last) name MARCHEGIANO. At least a few searchers made one or more of these connections fairly early on, but in this puzzle, "every letter counts" and I meant it. So your work was not yet complete.
Moving to the "exterior grid," set apart by its lack of direct connection to the song lyrics, let's start with the bottom row: WISPYAIRSEARCHLIGHT(S). While many tried connecting these words/concepts to the song in various ways, the intent here remained anagram play (for the record, I am generally not a big fan of anagrams, but my goal here was to try to make use of them in as fun and "logical" of a way as I possibly could). I thought CIPHER might stand out in this jumble, and indeed, it appears it did, as CIPHERISALWAYSRIGHT made its way into the discussion (both publicly and privately) fairly early on as well. My meaning here was double: a cipher is in play, and it is not only right (correct), but RIGHT (directionally).
To the right side letters: MISFITBLURBTRUNCATES. Again, some light misdirection potential here, as you could plausibly tie this phrase into an instruction of sorts. But we haven't left anagrams :) or :( depending on your perspective. I *tried* making this one a little less obvious, but it didn't fool for long. Several individuals and/or groups were onto it in fairly short order: BUTUNSCRAMBLEITFIRST.
That was it. You may not have realized it, but you had your ciphertext (as directed by the bottom row). Now how to decode it. Some searchers were already knee-deep in the One-Time Pad by the time the OTP clue dropped at 8am ET on May 1, but perhaps the Discord discussion that followed shined a new light? We'll find out in our upcoming podcast episode with the ultimate winners.
Going back to the "hidden" names from the interior grid, if you tied each to their numerical order in the song (Doris Day = 2, Pope Paul = 92, Marciano = 25), you were given a code 29225 that is indeed found in the OTP. By applying a simple polyalphabetic substitution (A=1) to the ciphertext, you received the message: KINGOFPOPSCOLACHOICE.
"Rock 'n' roller cola wars" anyone? As explained in an article many of you probably found and read through and through: "As soft drink companies Coca-Cola and PepsiCo each fought to win market share in the United States, both hired rock stars as corporate representatives: Coke went with Paula Abdul and Pepsi with Michael Jackson."
PEPSI was your keyword solve in this hunt. Case closed.
