THE POLICE – "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"

Tom @ 1: That’s another aspect to the ‘detachment’ element, isn’t it?

The 50s and earlier sixties number ones are evaluated on what they sound like alone. As we’ve moved through the seventies and increasingly now in the marketing-obsessed eighties, there’s a whole raft of other signifiers to take into account – sleeve design, video, and other trappings. As I’m hearing nearly all of these things mostly on pub jukeboxes and occasionally other people’s radios, those other signifiers whoosh right over my head.

I’ve never seen that sleeve before. The sleeve I associate with this is the cover of Ghost In The Machine, which features both cod japonnaiserie and a nod towards the digital age.

As for the song, well it’s enjoyable enough but it won’t surprise anybody here that I like the intense stuff!

no matter how much sting annoys the piss out of me, i just can’t hate this one. so atypical of them, maybe that’s why it’s a favorite.

sting has often been accused of being a crass commercialist. i can’t help feeling that, if that were truly the case, his catalog would’ve had a lot more “everything she does is magic”s and a lot fewer “invisible sun”s.

Hello. Long time no visit FT. (Excuse: my LJ ‘friends’ page is blocked at werk, so I never know about updates now, and it’s TMFD to do special checks. Lame, I know. One of these days I’ll read all the Popular threads I’ve missed – about 2 years’ worth of #1s, I think!)

This is my favourite Police song. My best friend and I at school were both 16 y.o. bad-poetry-writing emotional head cases with serious crushes on females (different ones, fortunately) when this was #1, so Sting certainly spoke to and for us at the time. But it still stands up as a great pop song I think; the general euphoria of the climax (those uninhibied “ee-yo-oh”s and “YEEEAAA-OH”s) always make me happy. This is a borderline 10, actually.

Have to agree that this does have a very light touch for the Police. I reckon they overcompensate with that eager puppy scamper from the verse into the chorus, but the Bobby Darin-ish swing of the middle eight and the jazz lounge piano are summery and rather sweet.

The ‘Kia-Ora’ chant towards the end isn’t. What was that all about, anyway? Didn’t they use it on other singles too?

Erithian, I remember Emlyn Hughes, during a stint as a Radio 2 dj, collapsing in squeaky giggles when he got a letter from someone in Pratt’s Bottom, Kent. I wonder if Sting would have done the same – or maybe the links between them end with the rhyming dictionary.

Shame that Neil Young never had a number one so we can’t make any Crazy Horse connections between him and Emlyn.

To my eight year-old self this was a catchy riot of calypso colour and jollity.

To my muso aldult self this sounds like a group failing to play to their strengths and always seems to go on a bit.

A pleasant surprise after the, ahem, subversive “Invisible Sun” (well, Sting said it was!) and shows how much more people would be inclined to like him if he’d written more stuff like this and “Message In A Bottle” – though by this point I do get the sense that he thinks he’s slumming it a bit with this sort of lighter fare.

lurker: i agree with your point completely. i think you described my charge of “commercial crassness” much better as smugness. of course his singles will chart high – after all, he is a consummate craftsman, correct? funny how his craftsmanship is not quite as strong when he’s tackling weightier material though.

i think this tune is brilliantly constructed. how many other chart-toppers from ’81, however daring or startlingly original, have an honest-to-god bridge, or use their individual elements to such colorful effect? i know it’s kind of a muso/Mojo argument to be advancing, but it’s worth considering when discussing the merits of a pop single. this level of proficiency is certainly not required (and when overused can become downright dull and stilting), but it shouldn’t be counted against a songwriter. maybe, as someone else rightly pointed out, sting did feel this kind of material was beneath him, but it comes off as much more effortless and complete than something clumsy like “wrapped around your finger” or “synchronicity II”.

and still i feel the need to defend myself lest anyone think i’m sticking up for the bastard. but i believe in giving credit where credit is due. sorry, this one’s a gem.

A very good single; treading water a little, but much better than the vast majority of what was around at the time.

There is definitely a nod to “Message in a Bottle” at the start of the bridge when he resolves to call her up a thousand times a day, and the second half of the bridge has a very 10CC feel to it.

I often wondered if their comments on “Invisible Sun” were a bit “Emperor’s new clothes” – I thought it was rather weak by their standards, forgettable in fact, but they seemed to consider it rather complex and ground-breaking.

Hideous hateful rubbish. A fraction better than “de doo do do” but not by much. There is nothing whatsoever endearing about this and it makes “Shaddap you face” sound like a masterpiece.

Well, it took me at least a decade and a half before I woke up to the fact those funny little lines on the cover were supposed to be Sting and the boys, in a computer (ie ‘the machine’, doh!)

As with all their hits and indeed the Police as a band this is a record to grudgingly admire rather than love. Nice video though.

Quite like this myself. Was a cheery little song to my 8 year old ears and it still does have that feel to me now. I particularly like the way the drumming kicks up on the chorus and the cymbal work is nice throughout. Remember the video of the band on some beach stage or something doing a dance involving kicking their legs up and vaguely remember copying it at the school discos.
Sting obviously liked some of the lyrics here as the line “it’s a big enough umbrella but it’s always me that ends up getting wet” is quoted in a number of his later songs.

#21 – Yeah, this isn’t the UK 7″ cover. I can scan it tonight, if needs be.

#6 – I’m with Jeff W: this is my favourite Police song, and a borderline 10. It’s the surging joyfulness that does it for me, especially during the build-up to the chorus.

I dimly recall a location feature on the making of this single, on C4’s The Tube.

#8 – While this was at #1, I was sharing a student house with five others, and the girl with the room next to mine was from… Pratt’s Bottom!

re 24 I’d be surprised if the ‘making of’ feature was on The Tube as that didn’t start until 1982 – maybe it was another show or another (police) song.

re 25 thanks for that – Tom’s image didn’t look too familiar
btw is there some kind of primer on how to create different fonts and links on posts to this site?

Re 24: I wonder if the making of was much fun. My residual bad taste-in-mouth with the Police has a lot to do with the singularly dull and disinterested performances, even when they played this hoppity thing. Copeland’s miserable, huge head looms larger than ever on the chorus. Take it away, please!

This is a very enjoyable record.

It seemed a bit lightweight and throwaway at the time (not necessarily a bad thing), a feeling enhanced by the swiftness of its release. It was debuting in the chart only 5 or 6 weeks after “Invisible Sun.” It was also quickly followed by “Spirits In The Material World”, as The Police crammed all three singles from the new album into the final quarter of 1981.

The video was shot while they recorded the album, and formed part of The Police at Monserrat special which was aired on BBC1 one early Saturday evening over Christmas as I recall.

If I fell in love and did my best to describe to you how deeply I was moved, I would be lucky to find words such as these.

I would try to describe how a thought of my love would enter my mind as gently as this tune opens.

I would try to explain how indulging that thought would allow emotional and physical sensations well-up inside me, until I was overcome with joy.

I would reach a point where my vocabulary was too limited to express my feelings – a point where only cries of joy seemed appropriate. I would want to yell it from the rooftops!

If I exhausted myself in an effort to make you understand, and your response was to comment on my limited vocabulary, punctuation, or grammatical errors, I would be saddened. Saddened for you.

From the whisp of a beginning, to the undeniable urge to yell for joy at the end, this song should be sung no other way. The Music for Monsterrat version is my personal favorite.

NMEWatch: 24th October 1981, Paul Du Noyer;

“Knew it was too good to last. With ‘Invisible Sun’ I found myself stopping to listen to The Police for the first time – the first suggestion of depth and mystery. Here, though, everything’s back to boring old normal: all clatter clatter and eeyo-oh-woh. God, but it grates.”

Du Noyer made ‘Love Moves In Strange Ways’ by Blue Zoo Single of the week. Also reviewed that week;

The Fun Boy Three – The Lunatics Have Taken Over The Asylum
Scritti Politti – The Sweetest Girl
Heaven 17 – Penthouse & Pavement
Kool & The Gang – Steppin’ Out
Prince – Controversy
Diana Ross – Why Do Fools Fall In Love?

Critic watch:

Beats Per Minute (USA) – The Top 100 Tracks of the 1980s (2011) 46
Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Woxy.com (USA) – Modern Rock 500 Songs of All Time (combined rank 1989-2009) 830
Rolling Stone (USA) – Singles of the Year
Village Voice (USA) – Singles of the Year 22

I’m afraid this is a 2/10 for me. I find it to be extremely irritating, and like most Police records this repetition at the end is very annoying. The song goes nowhere.