The Windmills of Your Mind - guitar chords and comments

Lyrics without distraction HERE

This song was theme song for the 1968 film "The Thomas Crown Affair" featuring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. The film won no awards, but the song did: both Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards. English actor and artist Noel Harrison performed it, after Andy Williams turning it down. Harrison himself: «It was recorded live on a huge sound stage at Paramount, with the accompanying film clips running on a giant screen and Michel blowing kisses to the orchestra.»   The English lyrics were written by famous American lyricist duo Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and they are in my opinion among the best I've ever read and sung. French lyrics, under the title "Les Moulins de mon cœur", were written by Eddy Marnay.   The entire soundtrack was composed and arranged by Michel Jean Legrand (24 February 1932 – 26 January 2019). He was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, jazz pianist and singer, and has written over 200 film and television scores in addition to standalone songs. With this one, he's told to have borrowed a couple of lines from Mozart's "Sinfonia concertante in E-Flat Major, K. 364: II; Andante". I've heard that concert, and did not recognize anything. Anyway, to quote my own "C Flat:C Major 9"; «by and by : where and why : I'd heard it before and just caught it»   First release was Harrison; June '69. Then following every second flippin' band and artist in show business, any category. I counted 466 main covers; then had to skip tracking adaptations, translations and instrumentals to keep my sanity. I recommend Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Michel Legrand himself with the London Studio Orchestra from "Magic", 1992 Teldec Classics International.

...          Cmaj7  B7   Em                               B7
round like a circle in a spiral   like a wheel within a wheel
                                               Em
never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
                        E7                        Am7
like a snowball down a mountain or a carnival balloon
                        D7                              Gmaj7
like a carousel that's turning running rings around the moon
                              Cmaj7                           Am6
like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
                         B7                         Bbdim
and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
                          B7                            Em
like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind

Em     Cmaj7  B7        Em                       B7
like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own
                                                   Em
down a hollow to a cavern where the sun has never shone
                         E7                           Am7
like a door that keeps revolving in a half forgotten dream
                       D7                         Gmaj7
or the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
                             Cmaj7                            Am6
like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face
                         B7                         Bbdim
and the world is like an apple whirling silently in space
                           B7                            Em
like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind

Em        Cmaj7  B7       Em                                Am7
keys that jingle in your pocket   words that jangle in your head
                      D7                                 Gmaj7
why did summer go so quickly   was it something that you said
                        G7                                     Cmaj7
lovers walking along a shore and leave their footprints in the sand
                        F#7                               Bm
is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand
                      E7                            Am
pictures hanging in a hallway and the fragment of a song
                           D7                         Gmaj7
half remembered names and faces   but to whom do they belong
                          Cmaj7                  Am6
when you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware
                            B7                          Em
that the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair
                                        B7
a circle in a spiral   a wheel within a wheel
                                              Bbdim
never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel
                Em                               B7
as the images unwind   like the circles that you find
                         Em
in the windmills of your mind