You can feast on the beauty of Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen in the montage that someone made to go on YouTube with the lovely Alison Moyet version:
No montage, just one still, but this is my favorite version, by Dusty Springfield:
The Sting version:
And here's Michel Legrand himself — he wrote the music, not the wild words — singing in French, where it's "heart" not "mind" — "Les moulins de mon coeur":
Here's one obituary, "Michel Legrand, Oscar-Winning Composer Who Lived 'Surrounded by Music', Dies At 86":
"Ever since I was a boy, my ambition has been to live completely surrounded by music," Legrand said of himself on his website. "My dream is not to miss out on anything. That's why I've never settled on one musical discipline."If I hadn't already written this post, I'd write a post about "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg."
From the Wikipedia article for "Windmills of Your Mind":
In the original 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair, the song is heard – sung by Noel Harrison – during opening credits; and, during the film, in a scene in which the character Thomas Crown flies a glider at the glider airport in Salem, New Hampshire: having edited the rough cut for this scene utilizing the Beatles track "Strawberry Fields Forever" producer/director Norman Jewison commissioned an original song be written for the glider scene which would reference the ambivalent feelings of Thomas Crown as he engages in a favorite pastime while experiencing the tension of preparing to commit a major robbery. [The lyricist] Alan Bergman: "Michel [Legrand] played us [ie. Alan and Marilyn Bergman] seven or eight melodies. We listened to all of them and decided to wait until the next day to choose one. We three decided on the same one, a long baroque melody... The lyric we wrote was stream-of-consciousness. We felt that the song had to be a mind trip of some kind.... I think we were thinking, you know when you try to fall asleep at night and you can't turn your brain off and thoughts and memories tumble."ADDED: I think the Bergmans' phrase "windmills of your mind" was derivative of the well-known "canyons of your mind" which I believe originated in the 1965 song "Elusive Butterfly." In 2015, I blogged (with video) about the history of that phrase — and its mockery, by Frank Zappa and the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Noel Harrison recorded the song after Andy Williams passed on it: according to Harrison... Harrison took issue with the couplet "Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own / Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone", singing the word "shone" British-style with a short vowel sound making the rhyme with "own" imperfect. Marilyn Bergman: "We said 'No, it's shone [long vowel sound].' And he said 'No, it's our language!'"
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Musically, I'd put him right up there with Paul Anka.
When Legrand uses "the windmills of your heart" I think it's partly because "coeur" (heart) rhymes with "fleur" (flower).
Not Glen Campbell.
The problem with the windmills of my mind is, the wind's not always blowing in there.
And they keep killing the raptures.
"When Legrand uses "the windmills of your heart" I think it's partly because "coeur" (heart) rhymes with "fleur" (flower)."
The question is, what word would you need to rhyme if you had the French word for "mind"? And it's not like there's a flower in the English version:
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
The Google translation is giving me "esprit" for "mind," but that looks like "spirit," and I'm not sure what French word would convey the hippie-60s feeling of "mind," which I would convey — if I were speaking to you in person — by pronouncing it, "my-eye-eye-eye-ind." Remember that the original idea for the song was to do something like "Strawberry Fields Forever." This was the old LSD notion of traveling inside your head.
Hey, remember early Ted Nugent — really early Ted Nugent — "Journey to the Center of Your Mind"?
Leave your cares behind
Come with us and find
The pleasures of a journey to the center of the mind
Come along if you care
Come along if you dare
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind
Beyond the seas of thought
Beyond the realm of what
Across the streams of hopes and dreams
Where things are really not
Come along if you care
Come along if you dare
Take a ride to the land inside of your mind
But please realize
You'll probably be surprised
For it's a land unknown to man
Where fantasy is fact
So if you can, please understand
You might not come back
Jeez, it's a wonder any of us amounted to anything.
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!
Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own --
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone.
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream --
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream.
Keys that jingle in your pocket,
Words that jangle in your head.
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that you said?
Lovers walking along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand.
Is the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
And the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces --
But to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over,
You were suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair.
The Parapluies de Cherbourg film made the greatest impression on me in the 60's AND then I toured France. The movie was striking for the somber mood of France post WWII but dealing with Algeria. Only the umbrella shop was colorful. And the music made it really a modern opera. Fabulous.
Here's ML with Maurane who passed too young last year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcFH66IyXCU
He sang that like he was a 33 record on a 45 setting. I am guessing that the studio demanded that he pick up the pace.
Sad to see this. I listened to his albums when I was in college, a very long time ago.
He had a birthday concert in Paris a couple of years ago that I hoped to attend. Was not to be,.
A favorite movie is his musical Les Demoiselles du Rochefort.
A few months after this movie came out, Francoise Dorleac, Catherine Deneuves' sister was killed in a car crash.
Danielle Darrieux is in the movie playing the girls' mother. She is also terrific. She lived to 100. She just died a year ago.
Aaaaah, Francoise Dorleac. Gone at what? 25. With so much left undone.
Somebody remind AOC that "Windmill in your mind" is not an energy policy.
And did you notice on last night's SNL they mocked Roger Stone's frailty by noting he's younger than Sting?
The version of that song that sticks with me is the Muppet Show interpretation.
In his heyday, the '70's, he was the most popular composer in the world. My parents, rest their souls, just adored him. Even went to his concerts. For "Umbrellas" alone, he had my love.
R.I.P. Michel.
Vicki from Pasadena
The chord progression sounds familiar. It is something like the falling fourths of Falling Leaves. This is achieved by moving counter-clockwise on the Circle of Fifths.
Here is a primer on the subject of chord progressions.
Didn't Weird Al Yankovich do a version as well?
It sounds like a song about the internet, especially the tunnel to a tunnel part.
I didn't know before that Nugent was in The Amboy Dukes. That feels like a bit of trivia that could win me a bar trivia contest. If I went to them.
Someone above mentioned, but here is the first version of the song with which I first became familiar:
Muppets
Fantastic song if just for its ability to transport you...somewhere in time. Not sure where. But not here. Plus: we really need another Steve McQueen
I looked through the list of movies for which he composed, and was surprised by some of them (I had seen most of them, even the French language ones). Particularly surprising to me, though, were Yentl, Atlantic City, and The Summer of 42.
Down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
I bet he (Alan Bergman) named his dog "Homo," too.
Someone needed to pick up the beat.
And cut out some words.
The remake had nina simone in the sound track.
Henry Mancini, John Barry, and now Michel Legrand.
We'll never see the likes of them again--especially not at the same time.
They composed the soundtrack of my life and, maybe, yours, too.
Farewell, old friends!
Why does Michel Legrand hate birds?
The Steve McQueen vid was interesting just for the amount of cigar smoking he did.
And chess as an erotic playlet? How did that get in the movie?
(Don't Fear) The Reaper was more or less philosophical?
All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
We can be like they are
Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man...
La la la la la
Valentine is done
Here but now they're gone
Romeo and Juliet
Are together in eternity...
Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday... Like Romeo and Juliet
40,000 men and women everyday... Redefine happiness
Another 40,000 coming everyday...We can be like they are
Come on baby... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby take my hand... Don't fear the Reaper
We'll be able to fly... Don't fear the Reaper
Baby I'm your man...
Love of two is one
Here but now they're gone
Came the last night of sadness
And it was clear she couldn't go on
Then the door was open and the wind appeared
The candles blew and then disappeared
The curtains flew and then he appeared
Saying don't be afraid
Come on baby... And she had no fear
And she ran to him... And they started to fly
They looked backward and said goodbye
She had become like they are
She had taken his hand
She had become like they are
Come on baby...don't fear the reaper
Come on, come on, come on
La la la la la
Come on, baby
Come on, baby
Come on, baby
Come on, baby
I think it's "my heart" not "your heart" in Legrand's original. "Mon" in French is "my." Looked up Google to be sure.
And chess as an erotic playlet? How did that get in the movie?
That IS the movie.
Master insurance investigator/criminologist versus master thief who avoided prosecution.
Sex is her flash-bang to disorient him.
I remember that song from the intro to the stand, which seems a little incongruous with the theme,
Black Panther (Michael B. Jordan) is the lead in the new remake of The Thomas Crown Affair being filmed now. I can't wait.
I showed my kids "The Thomas Crown Affair." It was 20 years ago when they were in their 20s.
They could not believe how good it was. They had never seen it. It would be hard improve. I know it was tried once.
many of the steve McQueen films of that era, harper, and of course bullitt, were great films,
He wrote music for two great French films, Les Demoiselles de Rocheforte and Umbrellas of Cherbourg. If one hasn't seen them, well you must. The first one has Gene Kelly, Catherine Denueve and her sister, sister who died a few weeks after the film wrapped. If anything, my fondness for redheads made me feel the sister more attractive.
sister who died a few weeks after the film wrapped.
Francoise was killed on her way to the Nice airport and her body could only be identified from her drivers' license.
I have a DVD of the movie and watch every few months, especially if I am working on my French,
"The Thomas Crown Affair" is one of my favorite movies. I actually like Brosnan's over McQueen's cause Crown was a much nicer guy in the second movie who was much much more subtle.
bgates: The version of that song that sticks with me is the Muppet Show interpretation.
I can't hear "Windmills of your mind" without thinking of Vicki Lawrence.
I ran the French lyrics through Google Translate. This is what came out the other end:
Like a stone that we throw
In the water of a stream
And who leaves behind
Thousands of circles in the water
Like a moon carousel
With his star horses
Like a ring of Saturn
A carnival balloon
Like the way of rounds
What are the hours
The trip around the world
A sunflower in its flower
You spin your name
All the mills of my heart
Like wool horses
In the hands of a child
Or the words of a refrain
Caught in the harps of the wind
Like a swirl of snow
Like a gull flight
On forests of Norway
On ocean sheep
Like the walkway
What are the hours
The trip around the world
A sunflower in its flower
You spin your name
All the mills of my heart
That day near the source
God knows what you told me
But summer ends its race
The bird fell from its nest
And here on the sand
My step is already fading
And I'm alone at the table
Who is thinking under my fingers
Like a crying tambourine
Under the rain drops
Like the songs that die
As soon as we forget them
And the leaves of autumn
Meet less blue skies
And your absence gives them
The color of your hairA stone that one throws
In the water of a stream
And who leaves behind
Thousands of rounds in the waterBy four seasons
You spin your name
All the mills of my heart
The French and English versions aren't even on the same planet.
Although Google Translate turns any poetry into dog food, it does seem that the metaphors in the French version smell less of 1960s pseudo-profundity than the English version does. But that is forgivable. After all, the world is just an apple whirling silently in space. (Dying to hear Donald Trump use that one in a press conference.)
Michael K, I was always a fan of Umbrellas but Les Demoiselles was so much fun and is so joyful that I like it better now.
While I don't care for his singing, LeGrand was a fine pianist. I have a couple obscure LeGrand CDs - one classical and one jazz-oriented... plus I think one or two others where he is an accompanist. Kind of in the mold of Andre Previn but not quite the same chops.
All this culture and refinement and no mention of The Grand Tour's version?
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x55ouh4
The song was so good that even the Muppets couldn't totally destroy it.
Here a harpsichordist's excellent rendition of Legrand's Summer of '42:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tD-wMcuN20
Michel was a true musical genius.
Noel Harrison--there's a blast from the past. The Guy With the Girl From U.N.C.L.E.
"Black Panther (Michael B. Jordan) is the lead in the new remake of The Thomas Crown Affair being filmed now. I can't wait."
In the future, all movies from decades ago will be remade with Black and/or Female leads.
SeanF (or anyone else): how did you post that link to the Vicki Lawrence video? (Or to anything else for that matter.) I have been trying to do that on this blog for years now and I have never been able to get the answer. Thanks.
William Chadwick,
See this example.
Thanks, Mary Beth!
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