So here's the thing: I want someone to do a major overhaul on Windmills of Your Mind – (hear the melody sung by Sting in the video below. Lyrics beneath that) – so that it loses its melancholy, reflective tone. We want it to sound energetic, positive and triumphant.
The problem with Windmills of Your Mind is that everyone who's ever sung it has reinforced the lyrics with a pitch, key, tempo, instrumentation and “whispery” delivery style that agrees with the words.
This song cries out for an arranger to counterpoint the introspective lyrics with an arrangement and instrumentation that communicate exactly the opposite. (I'm hearing trumpets. Are you hearing trumpets?)
First, listen to Windmills (below.)
Then, an example of a song that sounds positive and triumphant: Listen to Huey Lewis sing The Power of Love.
Can you produce a version of Windmills that makes the listener feel it's a song of energy and optimism?
Do it and become a superstar.
Windmills of Your Mind
(Noel Harrison)
Round like a circle in a spiral like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending on 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 on its face
And the world is like an apple spinning silently in space
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
Like the ripples from a pebble someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple spinning silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind
Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that I said?
Lovers walk along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Was 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
Were you 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