Hello tonyjoe,
Welcome to the mad house of those who attempt EV. There is normally a weekly thread started sunday afternoon. We tend to offer obscure hints rather than direct answers, and also Natter and Chatter!
K has given a hint to a Beatles song. In my opinion he has referred to the wrong song. The song title I have in mind describes the grid entry more specifically.
I am not sure if you are looking for some general hints on how to attack EV, but I will offer some anyway. I normally approach EV, by reading the Rubric, then going through the clues to look for gift clues, frequently ignoring the number of lights available to enter the solved clue, especially if the Rubric says as it does this week say "numbers in brackets refer to entered forms". This indicates that letters/words may need to be removed or added before the grid is populated. Occasionally the Rubric may indicate that the entry is a word or not a word, the latter is true this week. If there are not enough lights available in the grid I pencil the answer by the clue, if intersecting lights coincide they go in, but still in pencil. There has been at least one EV that had a hidden message, from redundant letters in the wordplay of clues that required the grid to have all letters erased, or blacked out!
This week 1a, 8a, and 11d are some of the thematic entries. Symmetry in the grid is an often used technique, particularly with thematic grid entries. Hidden words (indicated by "appear" in the Rubric) normally appear symmetrically, the NW to SE, and NE to SW corners are frequent places to search.
Hopefully this will give you some general guidelines to EV, and a hint or two to the offering we have this week!
Good luck with this and future EVs! Join us next sunday for Natter and Chatter as well as EV hints.