Feel the beat from the tangerine

Talk about a pithy title!

Happy Pi Day! Unfortunately, I'm hearing the federal government is defunding the National Institute of Standards and Technology, so legally all we can say for sure at this point is that pi ≈ 3.1. I guess that means Pi Day was two weeks ago?

A-peel-ing content (+ spoilers):

• 44-across: No sleep in heaven or Bethlehem!!!
• Anyone can 57-across.... even Animal :,)
• Stop slandering 61-across!
• The saga of the 25-down in question
• 28-down: Obligatory Wilde lyricism
• 41-down: Are you hip to hard-edge art? I hope so!
• Theme explanation

  
  This puzzle is about one of my favorite linguistic phenomena — the mondegreen, a mishearing that results in its own altered meaning. You've probably come across some of your own in song lyrics — for example, I used to think Jackson Browne was requesting the listener "talk to my eyes" in his song "Doctor My Eyes." The mondegreen I imagine boasts the biggest cultural impact by far is the "Empire State of Mind" rephrasing "concrete jungle wet dream tomato," which nearly made it into the title but for my puritanical reluctance to feature the phrase "wet dream" on the homepage of my crossword blog.
  
  Auto-transcription tools are a journalist's best friend these days, but if you don't pay attention they can also introduce some pretty gnarly mondegreens into your work. Reporting for Audubon, I often find myself using the word "Audubon" during interviews, which has variously elicited transcriptions of "autobots," "ottoman," and "autobahn," all of which would also be compelling subjects for a magazine!