Observations placeholder
Legrand - Windmills of your mind
Identifier
005946
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
"The Windmills of Your Mind" is a song with music by French composer Michel Legrand and English lyrics written by Americans Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman. The French lyrics, under the title "Les moulins de mon cœur", were written by Eddy Marnay. The song (with the English lyrics) was used as the theme for the 1968 film, The Thomas Crown Affair.
It intrigues me that the English lyrics are the Windmills of your mind whereas the French lyrics are the windmills of your heart.
This said, the Bergmans have packed more symbolism into the English lyrics of what amounts to a short poem, than perhaps anyone on the site - and the Bergmans would have known this.
The revolving door to perception, Blake would have been impressed
A description of the experience
"Windmills Of Your Mind" - sung in this case by Noel Harrison the original version for the film; and for a contrast an alternative very sensuous version by Eva Mendes with the words on screen
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
Rolling 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
All the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple
Rolling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
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 walk along the shore
Leave their footprints in the sand
Is the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
Or the fragment of this 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 colour of his hair?
Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
The source of the experience
Legrand, MichelConcepts, symbols and science items
Symbols
Apples and the apple treeBalloons
Carousel or merry-go-round
Cave
Clock
Door
Mountain
Spiral
Tunnel
Wheel
Windmill