It was originally recorded by the English actor Noel Harrison in In the original film The Thomas Crown Affair , the song is heard — sung by Noel Harrison — during opening credits; and, during the film, in a scene in which the character Thomas Crown flies a glider at the glider airport in Salem, New Hampshire. Alan Bergman said of the creation of the song: "Michel [Legrand] played us [Marilyn Bergman and me] seven or eight melodies.
We listened to all of them and decided to wait until the next day to choose one. We three decided on the same one, a long baroque melody The lyric we wrote was stream-of-consciousness. We felt that the song had to be a mind trip of some kind" — "The [eventual] title was [originally] a line at the end of a section When we finished we said: 'What do we call this?
It's got to have a title. That line is kind of interesting. It came out of the body of the song. I think we were thinking, you know when you try to fall asleep at night and you can't turn your brain off and thoughts and memories tumble.
Noel Harrison recorded the song after Andy Williams passed on it. According to Harrison: "It was recorded live on a huge sound stage at Paramount , with the accompanying film clips running on a giant screen and Michel blowing kisses to the orchestra. Marilyn Bergman: "We said 'No, it's shone [long vowel sound]. Harrison's version had a single released in the US in July soon after the premiere of the film and similarly was released in the British Isles at the time of the film's 7 February premiere in the UK and Ireland.
Harrison's single debuted at No. Jerry Wexler , president of Atlantic Records , heard "The Windmills of Your Mind" on the soundtrack of The Thomas Crown Affair and championed having Dusty Springfield record the song for her debut Atlantic album Dusty in Memphis , overcoming the singer's strong resistance; Springfield's friend and subsequent manager Vicki Wickham would allege: "Dusty always said she hated it because she couldn't identify with the words.
