Album: Bookends
Year: 1966
. . .
“A Hazy Shade of Winter” was originally recorded for Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme album, but at some point, they decided to instead release it as a single, perhaps figuring that a more rock-and-roll oriented song would do better than their previous single, the chamber-pop “The Dangling Conversation,” which was their first single not to go top 5, stalling out at a (relatively) dismal 25.
And so, based upon a cooly dynamic Paul Simon guitar riff and a relentless double-time drum part by Hal Blaine — which either he or Art Garfunkel augmented by stealing the tink-tink-tink three-beat tambourine offbeat from “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” giving the whole thing the satisfying thwacka-thwacka-tink-tink-tink, thwacka-thwacka-tink-tink-tink which drove the earlier song.
[Read more…] about Certain Songs #2214: Simon & Garfunkel – “A Hazy Shade of Winter”