Dusty Springfield – "The Windmills of Your Mind" (1969)

Like a circle in a spiral

Like a wheel within a wheel

Never ending or beginning

“The Windmills of Your Mind” was written for the 1968 movie, The Thomas Crown Affair, which starred Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway.  Noel Harrison sang it on the movie soundtrack.

When Atlantic Records president Jerry Wexler heard the song, he thought it was perfect for Dusty Springfield, who had just signed a contract with his label.  (Dusty didn’t want to record it – according to her manager, “Dusty always said she hated it because she couldn't identify with the words.”)  

The original plan was to use it as a B-side, but that plan was thrown out the window when “The Windmills of Your Mind” won the Oscar for Best Song in April 1969.  The next morning, Atlantic Records mailed out 2500 promotional copies of the record to radio stations around the country.  

“The Windmills of Your Mind” was released
on the 1969 album, Dusty in Memphis

A couple of weeks later, “The Windmills of Your Mind” entered the Billboard “Hot 100” at #99.  It peaked at #31 a few weeks later.

A #31 record isn’t exactly a sharp stick in the eye, but it’s nothing to write home about – especially if you’re a recording artists with three top ten singles (“Wishin’ and Hopin’,” “You Don’t have to Say You Love Me,” and “Son of a Preacher Man”) to your credit.

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The music for “The Windmills of Your Mind” was written by the prolific French film composer, Michel Legrand, who later won Academy Awards for Best Original Score for Summer of ’42 and Yentl.

The song’s English lyrics were written by Alan and Marilyn Bergman, the husband-and-wife songwriting team best known for “The Way We Were.”

The music and words of “The Windmills of Your Mind” complement each other perfectly.  The lyrics present one image after another of things that go in circles – a carousel, a revolving door, the hands of a clock, an orbiting planet – and eventually end up right back where they started, while the music swirls and spins and chases its own tail.

Marilyn and Alan Bergman
flank Michel Legrand

The song’s arrangement is a tour de force – it starts off slowly, intensifies, recedes, and intensifies again.  (I think Legrand was the arranger as well as the composer.)

Dusty’s voice is warm and full of mystery and a little schizophrenic – at times, it sounds as if she recorded the vocal track having no idea what the orchestral accompaniment was going to sound like.  

“The Windmills of Your Mind” is somewhat disorienting – listening to it may make you feel a bit uneasy.  One writer said the song “occupies a singular place in the pop canon where psychedelia and easy listening meet,” and I’m not sure the world was a ready for a record that mixed and matched those two very dissimilar genres.  It doesn’t surprise me that it wasn’t a bigger hit.  

“The Windmills of Your Mind” may not be your cup of tea, but I think it’s quite extraordinary. 

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Dusty Springfield was born Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien in the West Hampstead area of London in 1939.

She was given the nickname “Dusty” when she was a child.  In 1960, she and her older brother Tom formed a pop-folk group called the Springfields.  (They picked the name while rehearsing in a field during springtime.)  

The Springfields broke up in 1963.  Tom became a producer and songwriter – he co-wrote “Georgy Girl” for the Seekers – while Dusty became one of the most successful female recording artists of the sixties.

But she wasn’t as successful as she was deserved to be.  

Jason Ankeny of Allmusic described her as:

[T]he finest white soul singer of her era, a performer of remarkable emotional resonance whose body of work spans the decades and their attendant musical transformations with a consistency and purity unmatched by any of her contemporaries . . . . [T]he sultry intimacy and heartbreaking urgency of [her] voice transcended image and fashion, embracing everything from lushly orchestrated pop to gritty R&B to disco with unparalleled sophistication and depth.

Elton John called her “the greatest white singer there ever has been. . . . [E]very song she sang, she claimed as her own.”

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Click here to listen to Dusty Springfield’s recording of “The Windmills of Your Mind.”

Click on the link below to buy the song from Amazon:

Dusty Springfield – "Wishin' and Hopin'" (1964)

Wishin’ and hopin’ and thinkin’ and prayin’

Plannin’ and dreamin’

In the sixth century BC, the Greek poet Hesiod wrote of a “Golden Age” – a primordial period of peace and prosperity.  (Not to mention alliteration).

Here’s how Hesiod described the Golden Age:  

[Men] lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all devils.  When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint.  They dwelt in ease and peace.

That sounds pretty sweet, boys and girls – where do I go to get me a big ol’ slice of Golden Age pie?

Lucas Cranach the Elder's
"The Golden Age" (c. 1530)

According to Hesiod, things went slowly downhill after the Golden Age.  The “Silver Age” came next, followed by the “Bronze Age.”  Things got better briefly during the “Heroic Age,” but turned south again during the “Iron Age,” which was the name Hesiod gave to the era in which he lived.  

Assuming we are still living in the Iron Age, what comes next?  Some of the more pessimistic ancients predicted that a “Leaden Age” would follow.  A more up-to-date name for the Leaden Age might be the  “Age of Global Warming.”

Or perhaps the “Crap Age.”  Personally, I think the Crap Age is what we have to look forward to.

Just ask Palm Apodaca:

I think the Golden Age of 2 or 3 lines took place relatively early in the life of my wildly popular blog – say, 2010.

Why do I feel that way?  Take at a look at the four posts I did about Leon Russell in 2010.  To begin with, all four of them featured really good songs.  In those days, I started with a great song and constructed compelling content around it.  Nowadays, I too often begin with some ridiculous concept or theme and search out a song that fits the bill – regardless of whether it’s a good song or a piece of crap.

Those Leon Russell covered these topics: the bizarre “Mazeppa” television show (starring Gaylord Sartain and Gary Busey) that aired late on Saturday nights on a Tulsa station in the 1970s, Lord Byron's poem about the Ukrainian gentleman who that show was named after, the last month of the life of a beloved family dog, Lt. William Calley and the My Lai massacre, the many famous musicians that Leon Russell played with during his long and glorious musical career, an early-day Doonesbury strip I taunted my college girlfriend with, Keith Richards’ dogs (a golden Lab named Pumpkin and a wolfhound named Syphilis), and Kathi McDonald (a fabulous female backup singer you’ve never heard of).

Leon Russell

My late grandmother used to warn me not to break my arm patting myself on the back, but those were four great posts if I do say so myself.  And there were plenty other good ones back then – and in 2011 and 2012 as well.

Things started to go downhill in 2013, I think.  Since then there have been flashes of brilliance, but they’re getting to be fewer and farther between.

I may be flattering myself to say that 2 or 3 lines is currently in its Silver Age.  I fear it’s skipped the Bronze and Iron Ages and gone straight to its Crap Age.

I’m sure you’re eager to hear what I’m planning to do to shake off the decadence that has befallen 2 or 3 lines and restore it to its former glory.  So here’s what I have planned for the new year:  MORE OF THE SAME.

That’s right, boys and girls.  I’d be kidding myself if I thought that anything was going to change from 2015.  I’m starting off 2016 up to my ankles in quicksand, and I may sink deeper into that quicksand  before getting free and clear of it.

We can hope I’m wrong.  We can hope that 2 or 3 lines will soon return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when every post (like the schoolchildren of Lake Wobegon) was above-average.  

We can also hope that if we dig down to the bottom of a big pile of horse manure, we’ll eventually find a pony.   

Here’s “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” a Burt Bacharach–Hal David song that was a top ten hit for Dusty Springfield in 1964:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Lesley Gore – "Je Ne Sais Plus" (1965)

Je ne sais plus

Ce qui vient d'arriver entre nous

In the last 2 or 3 lines, our featured song was the late Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me."

Miss Gore recorded that song not only in English, but also in French, Italian, and German.

Lesley Gore

I am as monolingual as a man can be, so I used Google Translate to compare the lyrics of Gore's  foreign-language versions of "You Don't Own Me" to the lyrics of the original English version.

The non-English lyrics seem to bear little resemblance to the English lyrics.  The German version – which is titled "Goodbye, Tony" – seems particularly dissimilar to the original.

Many other singers covered "You Don't Own Me," which some people view as a seminal feminist cri de coeur.  (As I explained in the previous 2 or 3 lines, I am not one of those people.)

Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield – whose real name was Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien – covered "You Don't Own Me" a few months after Lesley Gore's version was released in 1963.  

Miss Springfield was seven years older than Miss Gore, but her warm, sensual, mature voice was not as well-suited for "You Don't Own Me."  When you hear Dusty sing, "Don't say I can't go with other boys," the line loses all credibility.  Lesley Gore's uncomplicated teenaged voice and innocent appearance works much better.

It's an odd coincidence that both Gore and Springfield were gay.  Gore's relationship with Lois Sasson (which dated to 1982) was not only long-lasting but seemingly free of drama.

Dusty Springfield and Teda Bracci

Springfield's love life was much more tempestuous.  In 1982, for example, she met actress Teda Bracci at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.  The two later moved in together and exchanged vows at an unofficial wedding ceremony shortly thereafter.  But a few months later, Bracci smashed Springfield in the mouth with a saucepan, knocking out several of her teeth.  The two then separated.

Dalida, the legendary Italian-Egyptian singer who received 70 gold records, recorded "You Don't Know Me" in French and Italian, while other singers covered the song in Dutch, Swedish, Czech, and Japanese.  

Joan Jett's funereal cover of "You Don't Own Me" is shockingly bad:

But for sheer douche-chill-generating power, no cover version of "You Don't Own Me" comes close to the one performed by Goldie Hawn, Diane Keaton, and Bette Midler in the 1996 movie, The First Wives Club. 

A sign that the apocalypse is just around the corner is the fact that a musical based on that movie is scheduled to open in Chicago any day now.  The book for First Wives Club: The Musical was written by Linda Bloodworth-Thomason.  Along with her husband Harry, Ms. Bloodworth-Thomason is responsible not only for "Designing Women" but also for the Bill Clinton hagiography, The Man from Hope.

Here's Lesley Gore's French cover of "You Don't Know Me," which is titled "Je Ne Sais Plus":