118: 50 Ways
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 '70s hit marathon, went to sleep, and while being sleepy replaced "lover" by "hover" while writing the last line of the song's chorus. Thus changing this line from to leave your lover into to learn to hover. Clearly, this amused him so much he decided to create a comic where people learn how to hover, rather than 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.
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)