If you have been around the sun more than a few dozen times, you have seen more than one human get lost in his own thoughts. Usually happens on a Tuesday, just after a good meal and a bad decision. And let me tell you, once the mind gets to spinning, it don’t much care about gravity, reason, or polite company. It just goes.
That’s what this here song is about—not love, not time, not some trip to the grocery—it’s about the maelstrom upstairs. The human brain, bless its overambitious heart, is always trying to make sense of the world by making circles out of straight lines and mysteries out of breakfast.
Sometimes something can not be made better. I submit the song “The Windmills of Your Mind,” written by Michel Legrand (music) and Alan and Marilyn Bergman (lyrics) is one such mind bending lyrics. Originally featured in the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair, the song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. See video below.
My thoughts first, si vous plaît.
Take the first verse:
“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel…”
Now what in tarnation is that supposed to mean? I’ll tell you what—it’s a metaphor, a whole merry-go-round of ‘em. That’s the sound of a brain chewing on a thought so long it forgets what it tasted like to begin with.
And then:
“Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes of its face…”
That there’s the poetry of a man watching time slap him upside the head while he wonders where the morning went.
By the second verse, we’ve gone deeper—tunnels within tunnels, doors that don’t stay put, dreams that evaporate like cheap whiskey. This ain’t just overthinking, friend. This is existential spelunking.
By the third verse, the memories come knocking—keys, lovers, songs, summer days that left no forwarding address. You can feel the ache of something beautiful gone blurry. And that one line:
“Was it something that you said?”
Now that’s the kind of question that’ll keep a person pacing the porch long after the fire’s gone out.
In the end, the song loops back on itself like a snake eating its own tail, as if to say: You didn’t really think there be an answer, did you? The mind don’t do straight lines—it does spirals, ripples, and ghost trails.
Final Thoughts
If you ask me, “The Windmills of Your Mind” isn’t a song—it’s a spell. One that conjures up the quiet madness we all carry like lint in our coat pockets. It’s what happens when you lie awake at night, trying to remember if you left the stove on, or why she left, or where the summers went.
It’s the haunting reminder that sometimes, the most powerful storms are the ones that never leave your head. And brother, we’ve all been there—just some of us learn to whistle while the windmills spin.
At the end of the video below, she asks, “What do you have to worry about?” He replies, “Who I want to be tomorrow.” – Gotta Watch!
[Verse 1] 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 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 in a half forgotten dream Or 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 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 a shore and 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 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 colour of her hair [Outro] A circle in a spiral, a wheel within a wheel Never ending nor beginning on an ever-spinning reel As the images unwind like the circles that you find In the windmills of your mind
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