50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"
Single by Paul Simon
from the album Still Crazy After All These Years
Released	December 1975
Genre	Soft rock, folk rock
Length	3:35
Label	Columbia
Writer(s)	Paul Simon
Producer	Paul Simon, Phil Ramone
Paul Simon singles chronology
"Gone at Last" / "Tenderness" (1975) "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" / "Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy" (1975) "Still Crazy After All These Years" / "I Do It For Your Love" (1976)

"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" is a 1975 hit song by Paul Simon, from his album Still Crazy After All These Years. Backing vocals on the single were performed by Patti Austin, Valerie Simpson and Phoebe Snow.

Creation

Written after Simon's divorce from first wife Peggy Harper, the song is a mistress's humorous advice to a husband on ways to end a relationship: Just slip out the back, Jack/Make a new plan, Stan. The song is anchored by a "linear" drum pattern performed by studio drummer Steve Gadd, which became the hook and color for the song. The song was recorded in a small New York City studio on Broadway.

Chart positions

"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" was Paul Simon's biggest solo hit and broke in the U.S. in late December 1975. It was number one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on February 7, 1976 (to-date, his only number one on that chart), and remaining there for three weeks, and topped the adult contemporary chart for two weeks. Overseas, on the UK Singles Chart, the song reached position number 23 in January 1976. It was certified gold on March 11, 1976, and remained a best seller for nearly five months.

Chart (1975)	Peak Position
Canadian Singles Chart	1
French Singles Chart	2
German Singles Chart	42
New Zealand Singles Chart	18
UK Singles Chart	23
US Hot 100 Singles Chart	1

Legacy

• Rosemary Clooney first performed a cover version of the song on her 1977 album Nice to be Around.
• Kid Cudi recorded a cover version of the song for his debut mixtape A Kid Named Cudi (2008). His version was titled "50 Ways to Make a Record".
• The beat performed by Gadd used is also prevalent on Common's "Forever Begins" from his "Finding Forever" album.
• Floyd and Janice performed the song on the Paul Simon episode of The Muppet Show with Rowlf coming on to the stage to ask for Paul Simon if there were 50 ways to love your lever.
• G. Love covered the song on his album Fixin' To Die (2011) which he recorded with the folk-rock band The Avett Brothers.
• An Eminem song titled "50 Ways", leaked which sampled the song. Eminem also sampled the song on the track "Murder, Murder" for The Slim Shady EP in 1997.
• DJ Quik sampled the song on his track "50 Ways", on his album Under tha Influence album featuring Wanya Morris from Boyz II Men
• Platinum Pied Pipers covered "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" on their 2005 release of "Triple P" on Ubiquity Records, featuring Rogiérs of Fibby Music.
• The album "Duplex Ride" from 1998 by Sidsel Endresen & Bugge Wesseltoft features a cover of this song.
• A Filipino band called Bamboo (band) also made a cover version of this song. It was in their 3rd studio album called We Stand Alone Together.
• A French group Pink Turtle produce a jazzy version of this song in their album "Back Again".
• Phish covered the song for the first time during their first performance at the Hollywood Bowl on August 8th, 2011.
• Pigeon John creates his own cover version of this song called "Passion (feat Tapwater)" off of his 2002 album called Is Clueless (2002).
• Brad Mehldau does an elliptical version on his album "Day is Done".
• Tok Tok Tok covered the song in their homonymous 1999 album.
• Rapper Kool Moe Dee interpolated the song and sampled Simon's vocals on the song "50 Ways" from his 1987 album How Ya Like Me Now.
• Joanna Wang (王若琳) covered the song which was published on an EP 4 Tracks (Sony Music Taiwan).
• Heike Makatsch covered the song for the soundtrack of "Die Häupter meiner Lieben" (1999).
• Ab-Soul sampled the song for his second independent album Control System (2012), on the song, "A Rebellion," featuring Alori Joh.
• The television show Recess (TV series) referenced the song in the episode, "A Green State Fair", when a character tells Gus Griswald to "hop on the bus, Gus".
• Comedian Larry the Cable Guy, referring to the song, added "a few more ways to leave your lover" in one of his stand-up routines: "Put it in the wrong crack, Jack/Tell her you're gay, Ray/Roll her over, Grover/Push her off a cliff... Cliff"
• Dinah Shore sang 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover on The Carol Burnett Show on November 13, 1976 (Season 10, Episode 8)
• Theophilus London sampled the track "Forever Begins" by fellow hip-hop artist Common on his 2011 mixtape "JAM!". The track heavily features the drum portion of Simon's song.
• Sony Holland covered the song like it was a jazz standard on "Swing, Bossas, Ballads & Blues" in 2009.
• The HBO comedy show Flight of the Conchords made a reference to the song in the 2009 episode "Unnatural Love" where Jemaine Clement sings "There must be 50 ways that lovers have left me" in the song "Carol Brown".
• Galactic covered the song at the Yost Theater on March 3, 2013.
• In 1979, Michel Delpech made a French version of the song called "Trente façons de quitter une fille"

See also

• Hot 100 number-one hits of 1976 (United States)

External links

• Paul Simon biography
• Full lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics

Preceded by "Love Rollercoaster" by Ohio Players	Billboard Hot 100 number-one single February 7, 1976 – February 21, 1976	Succeeded by "Theme From "S.W.A.T."" by Rhythm Heritage
Preceded by "Break Away" by Art Garfunkel	Billboard Easy Listening Singles number-one single February 28, 1976 (2 weeks)	Succeeded by "Lonely Night (Angel Face)" by Captain & Tennille