Michel Legrand - The Windmills Won't Stop

Michel Legrand died a few days ago (February 24, 1932 – January 26, 2019). Thus ends the musical question, "What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life?" But his other very famous song? "Windmills of Your Mind" keeps on going. 

He was active a rather long time, having worked on a new stage musical (an adaption of a Dumas novel) in 2008. It was called Marguerit. The average fan of musicals probably knows Legrand for "Yentl," which won him a bunch of awards in 1983. His prime years were the 60's through the 80's. 

Although his 3 Oscars and 5 Grammy awards were for soundtracks and songs, Legrand was well schooled in classical music at the Conservatoire de Paris, and an early love was jazz. In the photo above, well, if you don't know who is with Michel, that's your problem, and a big one. Legrand was a fine jazz pianist and worked with many of the greats of the early 60's (which was when the Grammy Award broadcasts STILL would have room for allowing jazz performers to do their stuff).

Legrand's film soundtracks did have some fine music, and this was recognized via nominations and/or awards for "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968), Wuthering Heights (1970), Le Mans (1971) and "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972) among others. One of his better but more neglected scores was for "Ice Station Zebra" (1968). Still, his name remains mostly associated with fluff: his scores for "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" (1965), The Young Girls of Rochefort (1968, which featured Gene Kelly and the sisters Catherine Deneueve and her ill-fated sibling Francoise Dorleac), and "Summer of '42" (1971). 

No doubt, his three most famous songs are "I Will Wait For You," and the notorious "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life" and "Windmills of your Mind," both featuring the lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman. The latter first became a hit via Noel Harrison, who got into a prickly squabble over the rhyme of "tunnel of its own" with "sun has never shone." Being a proud Brit, he refused to sing the American pronunciation. In fact, he shunned it.
  
When it came time for the Oscar telecast (the song was the winner), Noel was shunned. Well, actually, Jose Feliciano was substituted because Harrison was making a movie and the producer refused to release him for the few days necessary to fly in, rehearse and perform. Harrison admitted that this was largely because the producer hated him. The producer apparently wasn't the only one, but Noel would have a long way to go to be disliked as much as his notoriously misanthropic and egocentric father, Rex. 

Noel's "Windmills" was the big international hit, but soon Dusty Springfield's cover made the Top 40 in many markets. Jose Feliciano, with his Oscar triumph, actually got his single into the Top 20 in the actual land of the windmills, Holland. 

Ever have a tune keep playing over and over in your brain? 

That's 'cause...there are WINDMILLS in your mind. Really. And they respond especially well to catchy kitsch. 

Seemingly put together as a homework assignment for Similes 101, "Windmills of Your Mind" offered spooky psychedelia via the music of Michel Legrand, and the alcoholic mist created by middle-aged hacks Alan and Marilyn Bergman. They toss snowballs down a mountain and think the world is "like an apple whirling silently in space."

First line sets our theme:
"ROUND." Yep, things are round (like an apple) and just as ripe.

The lyrics get so numbing Jazz singer Carmen Lundy mistakenly sings of a "clock whose hands are SLEEPING" past the minutes of its face. But you get plenty of other versions where the singers do get the lyrics (and variatios thereof) right. And most rhyme
"own" and "SHOWN." But what's it all mean?

The song seems to be saying that as endless as the world is, life isn't and love isn't.



Did you know there's a lyric variation to the song? Do you care?

 Singers had a choice of "when you knew that it was over you were suddenly aware that the autumn leaves were turning to the color of her hair," OR, "when you knew that it was over in the autumn of goodbyes, for the moment you could not recall the color of his eyes." The latter is represented here by Ms Judith Lefeber.
 
Years ago, comedian Frank Fay made a living satirizing the lyrics of pop tunes like "Tea for Two." It's a cruel trick. A cheap trick. So we'll surrender any further impulse to insult a song that keeps saying "like" over and over, and mentioning "things that are round" like a bad game of $25,000 Pyramid.

Fact is, the song's circles and spirals and wheels are kind of mesmerizing. The Bergmans come up with "words that jangle in your head" (a nod to Bob's Tambourine Man perhaps). Like some Dylan tunes, notably "Lenny Bruce," there are some good lines jammed against bad ones. In Bob's case, in that song, it was "they stamped him and they labeled him, like they do with pants and shirts" followed by the good "he fought a war on a battlefield where every victory hurts." Here, a cliche about lovers leaving footprints in the sand is followed by: "Is the sound of distant drumming just the fingers of your hand?" Not too shabby. 

There are also some effective and eerie images: "Like a tunnel that you follow to a tunnel of its own..." or "Like a door that keeps revolving in a half-forgotten dream." Like, you gotta like that. 

Like, listen for yourself. Over and over. Legrand's grandfather clock heart has stopped, but his songs live on. And "Windmills of Your Mind" lives on and on and on. 

The song has been covered by literally a hundred well known performers, ranging from Dinah Shore, Sandler and Young and The Sandpipers to Sharleen Spiteri, Barbra Streisand, Sting and Swing out Sister. From Mel Torme and Leslie Uggams to Edward Woodward, Johnny Mathis, Nana Mouskouri, Alison Moyet and Billy Paul. From Pepe & Paradise to the Parenthetical Girls. From Ray Coniff, Anne Clark and Petula Clark to John Davidson, John Gary, Jack Jones and Skeeter Davis. 
 
You get 25 different versions (some use the French title Les Moulins de mon Coeur) including Legrand, Frida Boccara, Dorothy Ashby, Mathilde Santing, Paul Muriat, and James Galway. Of special interest, the top 10:

1. Psychedelic and slow: Vanilla Fudge
2. Eerie border colic: Baja Marimba Band
3. Oliver Twists: Trinity Boys Choir
4. Disco Dizziness: Sally Anne Marsh
5. A gargle of goo: Jim Nabors
6. Swanky swinging: Judith Lefeber
7. Vintage French Fluff: Vicky Leandros
8. Scat with Scuffy Grapelli-style Violin: Carmen Lundy
9. Accapella Angst: The Lettermen
10. How Elton Might've Done It: Jose Feliciano

Go Dutch: Here's the WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND - a ZIP FILE to download (can't listen on line) No dopey PASSWORD, no creepy Russian server loaded with malware, and no waiting around on a PAY site that takes the royalties for themselves