Les Moulins de mon Coeur” (The Windmills of Your Mind)
Michel Legrand
French composer Michel Legrand wrote the music of this theme song for Norman Jewison’s 1968 movie “The Thomas Crown Affair.” Other works among Legrand’s 200+ film scores included director Jacques Demy’s “Les demoiselles de Rochefort” (1967), “Les parapluies de Cherbourg” (1964) and Agnès Varda’s “Cléo de 5 à 7.” In a little-known inversion of common Hollywood practice, Jewison edited five hours of previously shot film onto the scaffolding of Legrand’s 90-minute musical score instead of scaling the music to the film.
In the film, Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) is a bored but thrill-seeking Boston billionaire who masterminds bank robbery as an insurance scam in the interest of what might be called “lifestyle” enhancement. In cat-and-mouse fashion, a female insurance investigator Vicki (Faye Dunaway) gives pursuit. The theme song unfolds as McQueen pilots a yellow glider making runs over open fields in Salem, New Hampshire. The silence and circular geometry of the glider contrasts with the presumed psychological turbulence in Crown’s mind as relayed in Legrand’s song. The music, lyrics and visual imagery contribute a mesmerizing effect. The song won both the Golden Globe and the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1969 and it continues strong today nearly 60 years later.
The artistic parentage of this stylish "neo-noir" movie and song resembled the hallucinatory quality of the song itself as it emerged during the creative process. Novice songwriter Alan Trustman wrote the screenplay (his first) in much the same off-handed way that Thomas Crown became a bank robber in the film. Trustman had been a brilliant student at Boston Latin, Philips Exeter Academy, Harvard College and Harvard Law School. After a brief 6-year law career, he retired in 1967 on full pension at age 37. In just a few weeks he dashed off “The Thomas Crown Affair,” drawing on his brief experience working in a bank. The William Morris Agency, which also worked with Canadian director Norman Jewison, acquired the screenplay. As for composer Michel Legrand, after achieving international recognition with “The Umbrellas of Cherbourg” in 1964, he moved to LA in 1967 to try his hand in Hollywood films. Once there, Gene Kelly introduced him to Alan and Marilyn Bergman who were well-established lyricists and became long-time collaborators.
During film production, Norman Jewison had inserted the Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields Forever” as a temporary place-holder in the rough-cut glider sequence. He showed it to Legrand, noting its offbeat repetitive quality, and told him: “I need something like this.” With this inspiration, the Bergman duo of American lyricists worked together with Legrand on the English lyrics looking to create a “mind-trip” for the glider scene. Marilyn claimed later that she drew inspiration from her childhood experience of succumbing to ether during a dental operation.
During film production, Norman Jewison had inserted the Beatles’ song “Strawberry Fields Forever” as a temporary place-holder in the rough-cut glider sequence. He showed it to Legrand, noting its offbeat repetitive quality, and told him: “I need something like this.” With this inspiration, the Bergman duo of American lyricists worked together with Legrand on the English lyrics looking to create a “mind-trip” for the glider scene. Marilyn claimed later that she drew inspiration from her childhood experience of succumbing to ether during a dental operation.
Michel Legrand created a handful of melodies and they collaborated on the final selection. British singer/actor Noel Harrison (son of Rex Harrison) recorded the song as a side gig for a $500 fee. He was unable to attend the Academy Awards ceremony, however, so José Feliciano sang it for the Best Original Song presentation. Nevertheless, Harrison’s version rose to a top 10 hit in the UK. Dusty Springfield then released her version on an album and a single, launching a long line of other “covers” including Feliciano's in English-language markets.
The French language version, written by prolific songwriter Eddy Marnay, followed a similar sequence. Marcel Amont recorded the first French version, while composer Michel Legrand produced his own recording followed closely by Alain Delon, Nana Mouskouri, Sylvie Vartan, Claude Francois, Charles Aznavour and many others. The song quickly flowed into a host of other languages. Henry Mancini arranged an instrumental version. Clint Eastwood’s composer/bassist son Kyle Eastwood included a jazz version sung by Camille Bertault on his 2019 album “Cinematic.” Meanwhile, a re-make of the film occurred in 1999 starring Pierce Brosnan, René Russo, and Sting on the song.
Fragment, Salvador Dali, Don Quixote and the Windmills, 1945
The song’s lyrics are like an eruption of the subconscious. It is highly evocative with strong images and metaphors (windmills!) of out-of-control circularity and repetition, wheels and spirals, and intimations of frustration at life’s inconclusiveness. The cascade of similes (“like”/”comme”) creates a hallucinogenic context of utter confusion in a surrealist dreamscape. The song reverberated with 1968’s psychedelic and surrealistic zeitgeist, with provocative free-association images like: “a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon, a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face, and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space.” Shades of Salvador Dali and René Magritte!
In the parallel French version released separate from the film, Eddy Marnay was absolved of the need to portray Thomas Crown’s psychological portrait in the movie. With a stand-alone song, he was free to move it in a new direction. Without the need to reference the film and perhaps because he was a Frenchman, that direction was to up-play the salience of the simmering relationship between McQueen and Dunaway. Still, he had to accommodate the nature of Legrand’s distinctive music and its impact on the structure of the Bergmans’ song. Marnay contributed his own roster of different but vivid metaphors in Verses 1 and 2 and the Chorus.
Differences in the English and French titles of the song reveal variations between the two versions. The first word in the English lyrics is, simply: “Round.” More confident in its symbolism, the French version begins with a metaphor of rings in a stream from a stone thrown in the water. The original English version (The Windmills of Your Mind) is written from the point of view (POV) of an omniscient external observer who recounts the narrative referring to Thomas Crown as “you.” The French version (“Les moulins de mon coeur”), on the other hand, is written from Crown’s own first-person perspective where he addresses a female companion with the familiar form “tu/ton.” The windmills in the English version occur in Crown’s “mind,” while in the French version they are in his “coeur” (heart). This accentuates the romantic nature of the relationship in the French version and draws a striking contrast between cerebral and emotional instigators of behavior.
Furthermore, in the French version, it is the companion’s name that turns the windmills of his heart (“Tu fais tourner de ton nom tous les moulins de mon cœur”) whereas in the English version the windmills occur spontaneously, presumably activated by environmental factors. The French version also includes a personal account of the shared experience of the parties (“Ce jour-là près de la source Dieu sait ce que tu m'as dit”). The French text bears traces from other famous French songs like the “moutons d’océan” (Trenet, “La mer”) and “les feuilles d’automne” (Prévert, “Les feuilles mortes”). Both versions shift in the third verse from the explosion of circular similes that dominate the first two verses to a more personal and concrete narrative tenor. The English version in Verse 3 is more scattershot in its references, however, while the French version resembles the outline of a narrative.
Legrand’s music pairs sympathetically with the song’s lyrical structure and narrative as well as with the movie’s visual imagery. The lyrics abandon the traditional sequencing of verses, choruses, bridges and conclusions. There is no progressive narrative like those found in a classical “chanson.” There is only an evocative chain of images and metaphors that, because they lead nowhere, both express and foster anxiety and uncertainty. In both versions, the first 4 lines of the Outro close the song by linking back to repeat the first 4 lines of the first Verse.
Interfacing with this circular lyrical narrative, Legrand’s music embodies its own circular structure of melodic repetition of chords with increasing intensity in each verse, mirroring the narrative theme of runaway thoughts and memory. Music theory calls this the “
Eddy Marnay’s French version of the text represents an adept adaptation and not a direct translation of the original text. As shown in the text below, the overall structure and style of the two versions is identical, but Marnay formulates many alternative metaphors that differ from the Bergmans’ English-language original.
Juliette Armanet
The choice among the many vocal interpretations of the song is difficult. The selection featured here is a contemporary (2022) version by Juliette Armanet. Juliette (b:1984), daughter of a composer and pianist, released her first song in 2014 following early years of work as a journalist. She presents a pure and nicely modulated vocal interpretation with minimalist (piano) accompaniment. She brings a jazzy quality that Michel Legrand, a jazz afficionado, would have appreciated. However, she abridges the song by dropping Verse 2 and the following Chorus and then adds 3 lines in English at the end of the Outro. Those last 3 lines are lifted directly from the English version. To accommodate those changes, I have indicated the abridged sections in the text by a light red color. In a way, this abridgment aligns the overall tenor of the song more in the direction that Eddy Marnay initiated with his shift towards the romantic relationship of the parties. The omitted segments consist mainly of similes that have nothing to do with the relationship.
Juliette presented this version in homage to Legrand at the opening ceremony of the 71st edition of the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. This was 50 years after the song won the Oscar for Best Original Song and less than a year before Legrand’s death. The original English language version delivered by Noel Harrison 60 years before appears with the video clip from the movie following the notes below.
Juliette presented this version in homage to Legrand at the opening ceremony of the 71st edition of the Cannes Film Festival in 2018. This was 50 years after the song won the Oscar for Best Original Song and less than a year before Legrand’s death. The original English language version delivered by Noel Harrison 60 years before appears with the video clip from the movie following the notes below.
As usual on this website, French language notes are highlighted in bold/italic in the text and explained in the notes. The English and French versions are side-by-side for comparison and the English translation of the French facilitates comprehension.
Juliette Armanet, “Les moulins de mon Coeur"
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English Version (Bergmans) Verse 1 Round, Like a circle in a spiral Like a wheel within a wheel Never ending nor 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 Chorus Like a clock with hands 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! Verse 2 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 And a half-forgotten dream Or the ripples from a pebble Someone tosses in a stream Chorus Like a clock with hands 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! Verse 3 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 And the fragments 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! Outro 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! |
French Version (Marnay) Verse 1 Comme une pierre que l'on jette Dans l'eau vive d'un ruisseau Et qui laisse derrière elle Des milliers de ronds dans l'eau Comme un manège de lune Avec ses chevaux d'étoiles Comme un anneau de Saturne Un ballon de carnaval Chorus Comme le chemin de ronde Que font sans cesse les heures Le voyage autour du monde D'un tournesol dans sa fleur Tu fais tourner de ton nom Les moulins de mon cœur Verse 2 Comme un écheveau de laine Entre les mains d'un enfant Ou les mots d'une rengaine Pris dans les harpes du vent Comme un tourbillon de neige, Comme un vol de goélands Sur des forêts de Norvège, Sur des moutons d'océan Chorus Comme le chemin de ronde Que font sans cesse les heures Le voyage autour du monde D'un tournesol dans sa fleur Tu fais tourner de ton nom Tous les moulins de mon cœur Verse 3 Ce jour-là près de la source Dieu sait ce que tu m'as dit Mais l'été finit sa course, L'oiseau tomba de son nid Et voilà que sur le sable Nos pas s'effacent déjà Et je suis seul à la table Qui résonne sous mes doigts Comme un tambourin qui pleure Sous les gouttes de la pluie Comme les chansons qui meurent Aussitôt qu'on les oublie Et les feuilles de l'automne Rencontrent des ciels moins bleus Et ton absence leur donne La couleur de tes cheveux Outro Comme une pierre que l'on jette Dans l'eau vive d'un ruisseau Et qui laisse derrière elle Des milliers de ronds dans l'eau Aux vents des quatre saisons Tu fais tourner de ton nom Tous les moulins de mon cœur As the images unwind Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind |
Translation (Pendergast) Verse 1 Like a stone that one throws In the quick water of a stream And that leaves behind Thousands of rings in the water Like a moon carousel With its horses of stars Like a ring of Saturn A carnival balloon Chorus Like the rampart walk For endless hours The trip around the world Of a sunflower in bloom You spin with your name All the windmills of my heart Verse 2 Like a tangle of wool In the hands of a child Or the words of a refrain Caught in wind harps Like a whirlwind of snow Like a flock of seagulls Over Norwegian forests Over ocean whitecaps Chorus Like the rampart walk For endless hours The trip around the world Of a blooming sunflower You spin with your name All the windmills of my heart Verse 3 That day near the spring God knows what you said to me But summer reached its end The bird fell from its nest And already our footsteps Disappear from the sand And I am alone at the table That hums under my fingers Like a crying tambourine Under the drops of rain Like the songs that die As soon as they're forgotten. And the autumn leaves Meet skies less blue, And your absence gives them The color of your hair Outro Like a stone that one throws In the quick waters of a stream And that leaves behind Thousands of rings in the water In the winds of the four seasons You spin with your name All the windmills of my heart As the images unwind Like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind |
NB:
A “manège” is a carousel or merry-go-round, a word derived from equestrian terminology referring to an enclosed arena with a riding ring.
le chemin de ronde: this is a reference to a guard-walk around the parapets of a castle or fort.
un écheveau de laine: a skein or hank of wool; figuratively, a complicated situation; a labyrinth, tangle or maze.
d'une rengaine: an earworm, refrain or repetitive tune.
les harpes du vent: wind harps, perhaps a poetic reference to Aeolian harps (“les éoliennes”). In Greek mythology, the Aeolian harps were “played” only by wind and produced an etherial sound that conveys truth.
un vol de goélands: a flock of large seagulls (smaller gulls are “mouettes”).
des moutons d'océan: this phrase surely refers to ocean waves, as in Charles Trenet’s lyrics for “La Mer.”
A “manège” is a carousel or merry-go-round, a word derived from equestrian terminology referring to an enclosed arena with a riding ring.
le chemin de ronde: this is a reference to a guard-walk around the parapets of a castle or fort.
un écheveau de laine: a skein or hank of wool; figuratively, a complicated situation; a labyrinth, tangle or maze.
d'une rengaine: an earworm, refrain or repetitive tune.
les harpes du vent: wind harps, perhaps a poetic reference to Aeolian harps (“les éoliennes”). In Greek mythology, the Aeolian harps were “played” only by wind and produced an etherial sound that conveys truth.
un vol de goélands: a flock of large seagulls (smaller gulls are “mouettes”).
des moutons d'océan: this phrase surely refers to ocean waves, as in Charles Trenet’s lyrics for “La Mer.”
Noel Harrison, “The Windmills of Your Mind
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