1975 · Behind the Songs
A breakup, rhymed like a joke and felt like a bruise.
“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” is Paul Simon’s wittiest breakup song — a rhyming instruction manual for getting out the door. Released as a single from Still Crazy After All These Years in late 1975, it became his only solo number one, topping the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1976. The humor is the point: heartbreak, rendered as a tongue-twister, hurts a little less.
The groove is all swagger. Steve Gadd’s famous drum pattern — that rolling, syncopated figure — gives the song its strut, while the gospel-tinged backing vocals turn the chorus into something like a revival meeting for the recently dumped.
Simon has said the song began as a nursery rhyme he was teaching his son — and you can hear it. Sometimes the most adult pain arrives in the simplest package.