'A Hazy Shade of Winter' — a twice-told hit for wintry weather

Brrr! It's certainly been cold outside and sometimes inside as well throughout the winter storm that hit the McAlester area and other parts of the nation this week.

All the wintry weather got me to thinking about winter songs — not Christmas or New Year's songs, but those that invoke the sheer coldness and white snow associated with the season. Yes, there are a number of songs about winter weather that are still fitting for the time even after the holiday season has passed.

One of the best things about this time of year is stepping inside a warm house when all of the outside work is done, relaxing with a warm drink, or even a cold one. During my reveries I thought of several of my favorite winter songs, including one that proved to be a hit in two different decades by two different groups.

I'm talking about "A Hazy Shade of Winter" — the Paul Simon-written song that climbed to #13 on the charts when Simon recorded it with his singing partner, Art Garfunkel. Faster and sounding edgier than most of the duo's recordings, Simon & Garfunkel released the song as a single in 1966, but didn't include it on an album until they released "Bookends" two years later.

It certainly fit the mood of parts of 1968, the decade that saw the assassination's of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis and Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles.

Simon's song is told from the point of view of someone who is equating their life with the desolation of winter: "Look around, leaves are brown and the sky is a hazy shade of winter." The duo certainly wasn't feeling groovy on this song.

Simon & Garfunkel's recording includes an intense acoustic 12-string guitar riff throughout much of the minor-keyed song, which adds a lot to the song's aural ambience and gives it a funky grounding. Suddenly, in the midst of the song, the promise of hope arises: "Look around. the grass is high. The fields are ripe. It's the springtime of my life," they sing.

Alas, that mood doesn't last for long, as the duo weaves their story of a poet who hasn't realized his dreams. As the song ends, the snow is starting to fall. "Look around. Leaves are brown. There's a patch of snow on the ground," they repeat several times before the song comes to an abrupt end.

A couple of decades later, a young musician named Susanna Hoffs heard the song on a radio where she worked alone in a room at her aunt and uncle's ceramics factory.  A lover of classic rock, Hoffs had heard most of Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits, but somehow she'd missed "A Hazy Shade of Winter."

She figured it would be a great number for the group of fellow female musicians she formed a band with, called The Bangs. When she and her fellow band members later learned there already was a group called The Bangs, they simply added three letters to their name and The Bangles were born.

The Bangles added "A Hazy Shade of Winter" to their live set. Lead guitarist Vicki Peterson has talked about the challenge of adapting Paul Simon's acoustic 12-string guitar solo to the electric guitar she played with The Bangles. They rocked the song up a bit and gave it a grittier sound, adding some distortion to Peterson's lead guitar riffs.

When they were later approached about contributing a song to the soundtrack for the movie "Less Than Zero," they decided to offer their version of Simon's song.

If Simon & Garfunkel had recorded the song as a duo, The Bangles upped the ante — with all four band members singing on the record. Rhythm guitarist Susanna Hoffs and lead player Debi Peterson were joined by Peterson's sister, drummer Debbi Peterson, and bassist Michael Steele on their version of "A Hazy Shade of Winter." Having all four members of The Bangles singing together on the same song was a rarity. Normally, each member took a lead solo of her own, with occasional harmonies.

They made a few changes: They, or their record company, dropped the "A" from the song's title, calling it simply "Hazy Shade of Winter." Their record company also convinced them to drop the lyrics in Simon's original about drinking vodka and lime.

Those changes didn't matter to the fans who bought enough copies of The Bangles' "Hazy Shade of Winter" in 1987 to send it all the way to #2 on the charts — higher than Simon and Garfunkel's #13. It's a rare feat of a cover version placing higher on the charts than a Simon & Garfunkel original.

I wonder how many of those fans snatching up  The Bangles' version paid any attention to the line where The Bangles sing "Funny how my memory skips, looking over manuscripts, of unpublished rhyme." The song proved perfect for the "Less Than Zero" soundtrack and became the breakout song from the movie.

Oh yeah, The Bangles worked with a new producer for them when they recorded "Hazy Shade of Winter" — Rick Rubin, a producer who usually recorded heavy metal and rap, but would later prove instrumental in Johnny Cash's great comeback of the 1990s, when he recorded Cash alone with his solo guitar on the album "American Recordings" and its followups. Rubin also added a perfect sonic touch to The Bangles' recording of "Hazy Shade of Winter," showing again he's a producer who can record all types of music.

The Bangles were such big fans of Simon & Garfunkel as well as Simon's solo work, that they wondered and worried a bit what he thought about their version of "Hazy Shade of Winter — from Debi Peterson rocking up the 12-string acoustic  guitar solo with a gritty-sounding electric guitar, to dropping the line about vodka and lime and slightly changing the title.

"Hazy Shade of Winter" is the song that keeps on giving. In 2019, singer Gerard Way and lead guitarist Ray Toro of My Chemical Romance recorded it for "The Umbrella Academy," a Netflix series. Way and Toro based their version more on The Bangles' recording than Simon & Garfunkel's.

As The Bangles continued to perform the song live, they returned the missing lines about vodka and limes to their live  performances of the song — intent on delivering a version closer to how Simon wrote it.

The Bangles eventually met Simon and band members said he was gracious about the changes they made to "A Hazy Shade of Winter." They decided they needed to make a further gesture though, and later told how they sent him a bottle of vodka and a bag of limes as a humorous way to make amends.

I'll bet Simon accepted that graciously as well. I'm sure all of the songwriting royalties he received after the Bangles took his song to #2 on the charts more than 20 years after he and Art Garfunkel recorded their original version didn't hurt either.

Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.