As we drove across the Idaho border with western Wyoming listening to my a Pandora station, I felt compelled to skip past a Paul Simon song that had come on. The unfortunate part was that once it skipped we were out of range of a cellular signal. For probably the duration of our drive through the mountains.
My mom and my son seemed concerned about why I skipped the song. Especially since I muttered something about how much it sucked. Truth be told I don’t care much for Paul Simon, and so I told them about this.
Why don’t you like Paul Simon?
Oh I acknowledge his talents and some of the songs he recorded with Art Garfunkel are all time favorites. But there is something about his solo work that just makes me break into hives.
First of all he always mumbles in his songs. And he has half of the Zulu nation covering up his mediocrity with a full percussion ensemble. His lyrics are stupid and trite. “You can call me Al”? Really? This is genius?
But his greatest offense has to be the song Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover.
It starts off strong with a chorus of “slip out the back, Jack.” Okay. Then “Make a new plan, Stan.” But then it degrades into asking Roy not to be coy. Nice advice but hardly a method of extracting yourself from a toxic relationship. Hop on the bus, Gus, okay. Just drop off the key, Lee. And that’s it. That’s only five ways to leave your lover. Only ten percent of the promised list of fifty.
So for the next hour the three of us came up with more than fifty (sometimes passive aggressive) ways to leave your lover.
Along the list was
- Get a restraining order, Porter
- Get your locks changed, Jane
- Run off with a man, Stan
- Time to just leave, Steve
- Fake your own death, Seth
- Go live in a cave, Dave
- Jump out the window, Joe
- Step out to buy some cigarettes, Brett
- Don’t ever come back, Mack
- Hide under the rug, Doug
- Stop brushing your teeth, Keith
- Drive away in your truck, Chuck
- Throw up on her mom, Tom
- Make a pass at her dad, Chad
- Pee in your pants, Lance
And so on and so forth
Without a radio signal it beat the heck out of a hundred bottles of beer on the wall. The formula is simple. The method of leaving ones lover has to rhyme with the name of the person. Also the names cannot be used more than once.
So on your next road trip try it out and then write down the results and mail them to Paul Simon so he can deliver what he promised in his stupid song. Or just leave some of yours in the comments section!
Because there are obviously more than five ways to leave your lover.
