“The Windmills of Your Mind.” The Song That Squares the Circle.
So there was this rather mediocre film, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). About some cool guy who is rich, smart and bored, so he entertains himself by doing crimes and outsmarting others, showing his nonchalant coolness fitting James Bond. Had it not been for the good looks of Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway, there was not much there –typical mildly nihilistic stuff of the 60s. Not bad, not earth shattering. Well, there was a rather innovative split screen technique, used rarely in the commercial films, and…there was this amazing song, called “The Windmills of Your Mind.”
Whether it was the film’s plot of the song, but there was something that called for another version, so the film was re-made in 1999, this time with Pierce Brosnan, Rene Russo, and with Sting, singing the song. And from what I've read, one more version is coming up.
How and why did the makers of the film settle on this song, is unclear. It does not quite fit, except to suggest that Thomas Crown runs the circles around his competition, but it is clearly an amazing song, that somehow transcends all languages and all other cultural barriers. Just on Youtube, I’ve seen it performed in Arabic, Armenian, Spanish, French, Russian, German, Greek, and in all possible styles: pop, gypsy, jazz, Broadway, big orchestra. All kinds of big names are associated with it, from Dusty Springfield to Oscar Peterson.
While a very respectful team worked on it, French composer Michel Legrand and English lyrics written by Americans Alan and Marilyn Bergman, I still believe there was nothing in the work of these guys that would suggest that they were capable of a masterpiece.
Bergmans did a lot of cheesy songs for all sorts of cheesy films and cheesy performances, they worked with Legrand before and after, but none of their songs manages to transcend the limits of the genre. Yes, their songs would afford Barbra Streisand to show the power of her voice and the range of her emotions, but if you are not into the cheesy big vocal songs, there is not much there in my opinion.
The Windmills, however, is one haunting and mesmerizing song, which is stunning both on the musical and verbal level. Not being a musician, I can’t really explain the power of its music, but my feeling is that the power of lyrics had managed to infect Legrand, who had also transcended his semi-cheesy “Les Parapluies De Cherbourg” into something truly lasting.
So what’s the secret of lyrics?
“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain, or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!”
The images of a Circle or a Spiral are sacred for a reason. The endless circle of life, the ever turning wheel of fortune, the change of seasons, the cycle of generations. The song catches you, puts you on a carousel, and never lets go. It moves in all possible directions, making circles in space and in your mind, merging moon and an apple, snowballs and mountains, autumn leaves and hair, summers and words. There is something re-assuring and disturbing to be caught in this endless merging of Macro and Microcosms. But that’s what life is all about, after all. Endless turning of the wheel… with us or without us.
Sounds of words echo the process: Circle, spiral, carousel, carnival, – “l” and “r” turn and merge into each other, and spread in all directions, like circles in the water: wheel, reel, snowball, balloon, jingle, jangle.
All these repetitions invoke everything from children’s game: “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe,” to Yates: “Turning and turning in the widening gyre,” and from Macbeth’s “Than on the torture of the mind to lie In restless ecstasy” to Milton’s “The mind is its own place, and in it self Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.”
So "windmills of the mind" has clear pedigree in English literature, and so does this merger of emotional and internal with physical and external. Cf. Blake:
“How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackning church appalls;
And the hapless Soldiers sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.”
As the result of all these turnings and mergings, we get on the elevator that gets us higher and higher on the spiral, and yet, always reminding us of our inconspicuous origins: the speck of dust, a drop of liquid, a spark, a candle flame. These dual process of going in and out, up and down, expanding and shrinking, returning to the wound or merging with the universe, is what makes this song so unique, and that's why I believe that in this case, the lyrics inspired Legrand, as it afforded him to make a song which is both tragic and comic, lyrical and epic, physical and spiritual.
So the ultimate joke of The Thomas Crown Affair, is that the song had outlasted and outsmarted all the conniving plans that the characters or even its makers had envisioned.
Because the song is so amazing and rich, one can never find a perfect version of it, but in my opinion, Jose Felisiano comes close. And so does Charles Aznavour. The links to both performances are below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TENBIrwOHU&fbclid=IwAR1M8dGDkWwJ9CZEFIP5c6U316DoR8Ug3S4YOxVZDFkVN095XtM0LT5pXIc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvHLZnO8ajM&fbclid=IwAR3ME8bjRO0uipQ75CCe0R7wslV1KPu7_EroaLqJdjwLYrV3Ww8tvdUIWJo
