A Hazy Shade of Winter song as "one of [Simon and Garfunkel's] best songs, and certainly one of the toughest and more rock-oriented". In 1987, the Bangles were approached to record a song for the soundtrack of the film "Less Than Zero". They chose to record a cover of "A Hazy Shade of Winter", which they had been performing live since at least as far back as March 1983. Their cover, simply titled "Hazy Shade of Winter", was a harder-edged rock song that removed most of the bridge section. The record, like the rest of the soundtrack album, was produced by Rick Rubin. After a
A Hazy Shade of Winter led by Susanna Hoffs towards the end. This was a rare occurrence in the Bangles songs, as they mostly had just one member singing lead. Due to pressure from their record label, the Bangles removed the verse from the original song that contained the line "drinking my vodka and lime". According to liner notes on the Soundtrack album, Steve Bartek from the band Oingo Boingo played acoustic guitar on the track. When released as a single in November 1987, "Hazy Shade of Winter" became a huge hit, surpassing the popularity of the original version, peaking at number 2 on the