Substitution Cipher Puzzle

This puzzle's solution reveals the joyous title "Dancing in the Moonlight," a classic song that evokes images of carefree celebration. While its melody and lyrics suggest pure happiness (Review), the origin of this beloved tune, penned by Sherman Kelly in 1969, holds a surprisingly poignant backstory. Kelly wrote the song while recovering from a brutal assault in St. Croix, envisioning an "alternate reality" of peace and joy as a way to cope with his traumatic experience.

Initially recorded by Kelly's band Boffalongo, "Dancing in the Moonlight" achieved widespread recognition as a hit single for the French-American rock band King Harvest in 1972. Its timeless appeal has led to numerous covers over the decades, most notably by the English band Toploader in 2000, which introduced the song to a new generation and became a global success. The cryptogram you just solved utilized a substitution cipher, a fundamental method in the world of secret communication.

In a substitution cipher, each letter of the original message, known as the plaintext, is systematically replaced with a different letter or symbol to create the encrypted message, or ciphertext. This ancient form of cryptography has been employed for thousands of years, with examples like the Caesar cipher dating back to classical antiquity. The art of deciphering such codes, often through techniques like frequency analysis, has a rich history, with the earliest known published description of cracking simple substitution ciphers appearing around 850 AD by Al-Kindi.