"The Windmills of Your Mind" is a song with music by French composer Michel Legrand and English lyrics written by American lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

French lyrics, under the title "Les Moulins de mon cœur", were written by Eddy Marnay.

Producer/director Norman Jewison had edited the rough cut for the glider scene using the Beatles track "Strawberry Fields Forever", but then commissioned an original song which would reference the ambivalent feelings of Thomas Crown as he engages in a favorite pastime while experiencing the tension of preparing to commit a major robbery.

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.

15—abetted by performances by Harrison on the 27 March 1969 broadcast of Top of the Pops and also on variety shows hosted by Rolf Harris and Scott Walker—when the song won the Academy Award on 14 April 1969.

"[5] During the first sessions for the track at American Sound Studio in Memphis, problems with getting the proper chords down arose, and at Springfield's suggestion the song was arranged so the first three verses were sung in a slower tempo than the original film version.

In April 1969, the third A-side release from Dusty in Memphis was announced as "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore" with "The Windmills of Your Mind" as the B-side.

However Wexler was prepared to promote "Windmills" as the A-side if it won the Oscar for Best Song, reportedly instructing mailroom clerks at Atlantic Records' New York City headquarters to listen to the Academy Awards broadcast the night of 14 April 1969.

Hearing "The Windmills" announced as the Best Song winner was the clerks' cue to drive a station wagon loaded with 2500 copies of a double-sided promo single of Springfield's version – identified on the label as "Academy Award Winner" – to the New York City general post office, where the copies of the single were mailed out to key radio stations across the US.

[7] Local hit parades indicate that Springfield's "Windmills" had Top Ten impact in only select larger markets: Boston, Southern California, and Miami.

[11] Another version by British band the Colourfield from their 1985 album Virgins and Philistines Vicky Leandros recorded "The Windmills of Your Mind" in 1969 .

The lyrics for the French-language rendering of the song were written by Eddy Marnay and this version, entitled "Les Moulins de mon cœur" ("The Windmills of My Heart"), was first recorded in 1968 by Marcel Amont who had a minor French chart hit, peaking at no.

Vicky Leandros in addition to her English and French versions recorded "The Windmills of Your Mind" in Greek ("Η Μικρή Μας Iστορία") and German ("Wie sich die Mühlen dreh'n im Wind") .

[26] "The Windmills of Your Mind" has also been rendered as "Cirkels", in Dutch, released as a single by Herman van Veen (1968), reaching the Top 40 in the Netherlands.