118: 50 Ways

Explain xkcd: It's 'cause you're dumb.
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50 Ways
I woke up to find that I had scrawled the last line of this sleepily on a sheet of paper on my desk. I shouldn't have listened to the 70's hit marathon on the way home from work the night before.
Title text: I woke up to find that I had scrawled the last line of this sleepily on a sheet of paper on my desk. I shouldn't have listened to the 70's hit marathon on the way home from work the night before.

Explanation

The comic provides alternate lyrics to the chorus of the 1975 song "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" (Video) by American artist Paul Simon. Both the original and alternate lyrics provide a textual hook because the first name at the end of the line is rhymed with the last word of the line before (back/Jack, plan/Stan, go/Joe).

Randall, we learn from the image text, heard Simon's song during a 70's hit marathon, went to sleep, and while being sleepy replaced "lover" by "hover" while writing the title of the song. Clearly, this amused him so much he decided to create a comic where people learn how to hover, rather then leaving their lover.

Transcript

[Two figures stand around a levitating person.]
You gotta let go, Joe
Just rise off your feet, Pete
Just stay in the air, Claire
Gotta levitate, Kate
There must be 50 ways
to learn to hover.


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Discussion

Might there also be a cultural reference to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? In the books, characters can learn to hover or fly by perfecting the art of managing to miss the ground when falling. Gleyshon (talk) 01:04, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

You are so right, perhaps the key is 42, lets try to use it to figure out ultimate questions around us, such as what doesn't make since to us as society as a whole? - 98.211.199.84 13:58, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

The date of this one seems to be wrong. 141.101.80.120 12:01, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

It is right now. (Not by me). Beanie (talk) 20:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)