Bangles – "Hazy Shade of Winter" (1987)

Look around

Leaves are brown

There's a patch of snow on the ground

I desperately need the days to pass more slowly.  But just the opposite is happening – the days are passing more quickly.

Another year's almost gone.  Where the hell did it go?

Paul Simon is a very good songwriter, and "A Hazy Shade of Winter" is one of his best.  It's depressing as all get out, but still great.

Simon & Garfunkel

The song begins with these cautionary lines:

Time, time, time

See what's become of me

While I looked around for my possibilities

I was so hard to please

It behooves us all to be a little less hard to please.  You quickly reach the point of diminishing returns when you demand perfection.  

To paraphrase Voltaire, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."  

And as the British scientist Sir Robert Alexander Watson-Watt put it, "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, and the best never comes."

Look around

The grass is high

The fields are high

It's the springtime of my life

You don't really believe that, do you? 

If I'm lucky, it's the autumn of my life – if I'm not lucky, it's already winter.  But it's sure as hell not springtime.

Simon & Garfunkel released "A Hazy Shade of Winter" as a single in 1966, and it eventually worked its way to #13 on the Billboard "Hot 100."  (I can't imagine such a challenging song being released as a single today.)  

The Bangles recorded a cover version of the song for the Less Than Zero movie soundtrack in 1987.  That cover made it to #2 on the Billboard chart.

If you think this song is depressing, you ought to watch Less Than Zero.  Or if you prefer, read the Bret Easton Ellis of the same name that the movie is based on.  

Here's how Wikipedia summarizes the plot of the novel:

The novel follows the life of Clay, a rich young college student who has returned to [Los Angeles] for winter break . . . . 

After reuniting with his friend Trent . . . Clay embarks on a series of drug-fueled nights of partying, during which he picks up various men and women for one-night stands.  While partying, he tries to track down two high school acquaintances: his ex-girlfriend Blair . . . and his best friend Julian, with whom he hasn't spoken for months. . . .

Over time, Clay becomes progressively disillusioned with the party scene as he witnesses the apathy of his friends towards the suffering of one another and those around them: at one party . . . he and Blair are the only two who exhibit revulsion when Trent shows a snuff film, which sexually excites several partygoers.

Clay ultimately tracks down Julian, whom he learns has become a heroin addict and turned to prostitution in order to pay off a debt to his drug dealer.  Not believing what he has been told, Clay accompanies Julian on a job, where he is compelled by a male john to watch the man and Julian have sex for several hours.

After attending a concert with his friends, Clay accompanies them to a derelict alley where they stare at the corpse of an overdose victim which they have left there to decompose.  Afterward, Clay follows the group back to the home of his drug dealer, Rip, who wants to show off his latest acquisition: a twelve-year-old sex slave whom Rip has been keeping drugged in his bedroom. . . . Clay leaves, but Trent decides to stay so that he can rape the girl.

Sounds like the perfect beach read for your 2015 summer vacation, doesn't it?  (Assuming you live that long, of course.)

I'm not sure whether I like the Simon & Garfunkel or Bangles versions of "Hazy Shade of Winter" better.  I'm featuring the Bangles version because I am sure that I like girls better that boys.

Here's the music video for "Hazy Shade of Winter," which includes some shots from Less Than Zero:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Bangles -- "Hero Takes a Fall" (1984)

Wasn't it me who said

There'll be a price to pay

Three O'Clock, Rain Parade, Green on Red, Dream Syndicate – does anyone remember the "Paisley Underground" groups from Los Angeles whose music was inspired by the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Buffalo Springfield, the Doors and the other great L.A. bands their parents had listened to in the 1960s?

Michael Quercio, the lead singer of Three O'Clock (the band's name was inspired by an F. Scott Fitzgerald line: "In the darkest part of the mind it's always three o'clock in the morning"), gave the Paisley Underground genre its name during a radio interview.  

"Basically, we were all record collectors who played music," said Quercio.  Classic pop albums like the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds were "certainly a big deal to us," he added.  

So it should come as no surprise that the Paisley Underground bands played a lot of covers of sixties songs – the songs that their parents had listened to twenty years earlier.  (The Rainy Day album, a collaboration between members of several Paisley Underground bands that was released in 1984, featured covers of songs by Bob Dylan, the Byrds, Neil Young, the Beach Boys, the Who, Lou Reed, and Jimi Hendrix.) 

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The Paisley Underground band that had the most commercial success by far was the all-female group, the Bangles.  All Over the Place, the band's major-label debut album, is one of the great power-pop records of all time.

The second Bangles album, Different Light, featured "Manic Monday" (which Prince wrote for them), "Walk Like an Egyptian" (the first single by an all-female band playing their own instruments to make it to #1 on the Billboard singles chart), and a cover of Big Star's "September Gurls."

But just when the Bangles were blowing up, they blew up.  All four of the group's members were singers/songwriters, but Susanna Hoffs began to attract the lion's share of attention from the media, so the band's record label began to release songs on which Hoffs was the lead singer as singles. 

The Bangles: Susanna Hoffs, Michael
Steele, Debbi Peterson, Vicki Peterson

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Hoffs got all the attention in part because she was featured in the 1987 movie, The Allnighter – a huge box-office and critical bomb that was directed by her  mother, and which also featured Joan Cusack (you remember her from Working Girl) and Michael Ontkean (you remember him from Slap Shot).

Click here to watch the most famous scene from the movie, which features Susanna undressing in front a mirror and dancing around in her knickers.  If the movie has consisted of two hours of this kind of thing, it would have made about a zillion dollars.  Boys and girls, Susanna Hoffs is not only a great pop singer but also a grade-A hottie . . . although it's a little creepy when you realize that her mom directed this scene.

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The Bangles broke up shortly after the release of their third album, Everything, in 1988.  It was a commercial success, and included the group's biggest-selling single, "Eternal Flame."  Hoffs recorded that song in the nude because the album's producer told her that Olivia Newton-John always was naked when she recorded vocals.

(You know, I wanted to be a record producer but my parents would only pay for law school.)

The Bangles got back together ten years later.  They toured extensively last year in support of their 2011 album, Sweetheart of the Sun.  

Susanna Hoffs is still drop-dead gorgeous.  She recently turned 54, but I think she is even more beautiful today than she was back in the eighties.

Click here to watch the music video for "Hero Takes a Fall," the first track from All Over the Place.  It's full of jangly guitars and glorious harmonies and any of you who don't like it are banned from 2 or 3 lines for life.

Click here to take a gander at this live (not lip-synched) performance of the song on David Letterman's show -- Susanna plays a pretty mean rhythm guitar.  (What was Letterman thinking when he got dressed for that show?) 

Click here to buy  "Hero Takes a Fall" from Amazon.