Michel Legrand's music is loved by many. She seems to fascinate entire generations. And the composition The Windmills of Your Mind is one of the most mysterious in his work.
Something inexplicable is hidden in the music of Legrand's song. Having once heard a rather simple tune, everyone thinks about his own, then humming the melody again and again. These are associations, emotions and mood.
The creators of the masterpiece
The composition also stands apart in the history of pop music. In it, psychedelic came together with an exciting, albeit simple motive. The song is written in a light genre, but the composition does not differ in anything dismissively light.
The Mills of Your Soul are a product of their time. It fitted perfectly with the short period following the release of Sergeant Pepper. If earlier everything was simple and understandable, then the surging wave of psychedelics spun everything into a whirlpool.
The author of the music is famous, this is the French composer Michel Legrand. He loved jazz, performed classics, and his soundtracks for movies made him famous. This type of creativity brought him three Oscars. Among them is the award for the film "The Thomas Crown Affair" which sounded in 1968. It was performed by Noel Harris.
The authors of the words were a married couple Bergman, also three times Oscar-winners for the best film song. Both are musicians by education, but my wife is still studying psychology.
Difficult riddles
The poems only seem simple. They are incomprehensible. All words are understood separately, but the meaning escapes. Ian Macmillan called this work a model of modernism, urging students not to succumb to the seeming simplicity of the masterpiece and certainly not to imitate.
The name sounds very nice in translation. And the song itself is fantastic: it is significant, although it seems that there is no meaning at all. But this is where her charm lies. Let there be a little specifics, but it creates such a mood that it gives rise to vivid emotions and associations. And they give everyone something of their own, special.
This is what happened with The Windmills of Your Mind. It excites minds and souls for years. After Harris, both artists and singers became performers. It was performed by Patricia Kaas, Charles Aznavour, and Barbra Streisand. There are more than eight dozen vocalists in total. And there were also instrumental versions in the interpretations of Paul Mauriat and Fausto Papetti, each in a special style, because the arrangers found something of their own, close and consonant only to them.
Eternal music
The original text is a test and test of poets. However, in every country there were desperate heads who decided to translate. They sang a piece in many languages. And again, there have always been good finds.
Incredibly, the song took on a life of its own in the cinema as well. After the premiere in "The Thomas Crown Affair" in 1968, a remake of the successful work appeared. It was released in 1999. This time the performer was Sting.
One of the most famous versions sounded in "Breakfast on Pluto". Sang by Dusty Springfield. And Petula Clarke flashed with Soul Mills in The Casino Heist. The composition in "Focus" sparkled again, and in "Love Lives for Three Years" the melody was played by the writer himself, Legrand. He also performed a cameo there, appearing in the role of himself.
Delicate, meditative and psychedelic The Windmills of Your Mind is amazing, as are the lyrics to it. Even if it is simple, albeit deceptively simple, it twists the listener, including in its mood as if in an endless loop.
