50 Ways to Say Goodbye

The harmonic language is deliberately radio-friendly — diatonic natural minor with no borrowed chords or secondary dominants. What distinguishes the track is timbral contrast: hard-strummed electric guitars against mariachi-style brass hits, creating a sonic joke that mirrors the lyrical absurdism. The modest chord vocabulary is a feature, not a limitation; at 140 BPM the ♭III–♭VII–♭IV–i loop hits with enough drive that the simplicity reads as confidence.

Pat Monahan co-wrote the song with Norwegian duo Amund Bjørklund and Espen Lind, the same team behind several California 37 tracks. Monahan described it as 'just a gag about a girl breaking up with a boy and being so immature that the only way to handle it was to tell your friends she's dead.' The title deliberately echoes Paul Simon's 1975 classic '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,' and a working title — '50 Ways to Kill Your Lover' — was abandoned to avoid unnecessary controversy.

Train's second single from California 37 peaked at #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2012, becoming the band's most recent Top 40 entry. Running at 140 BPM in E♭ minor with a mariachi-influenced brass section, it cheekily echoes Paul Simon's '50 Ways to Leave Your Lover' while spinning its own absurdist comedy around a narrator too proud to admit he was dumped. The RIAA has since certified it triple platinum.