1968 (35th) Best Song: “The Windmills of Your Mind”


1968 (41st Annual Awards, 35th Best Song)
Best Song Lyric


The Windmills of Your Mind
(Theme from “The Thomas Crown Affair”)
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!

Keys that jingle in your pocket, words 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 and 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 color of her hair!

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel,
As the images unwind,
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!

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!

Keys that jingle in your pocket, words 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 and 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 color of her hair!

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel,
Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel,
As the images unwind,
Like the circles that you find in the windmills of your mind!