Song of the Week: Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

This isn’t the first Police single I remember, but it’s the first one I bought. I later ended up getting all the Police’s albums—and if I remember rightly, my sister had a few also. It was a year or two after getting this single that I ended up getting Zenyatta Mondatta. “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and “De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da” made a big impression on me, but I don’t have any specific memories attached to them.

After I had bought the single, this song played at a grade school dance. It was that situation where the boys were on one side of the gym and the girls on the other. I wasn’t the first one to ask a girl to dance—I had classmates who were far more confident than I—but when this song started, I steeled my heart, and went and asked my crush to dance. I remember it both because she said yes and because the song’s tempo wasn’t exactly slow dancing with parts of it that were quite fast. I think we were one of the few couples that actually danced the song through. I remember her smiling and laughing—that’s not to say that actually happened, because I have come to understand the malleability of memory, but that’s what I remember.

I never did date that crush. She preferred a friend of mine. I remember her because I remember that moment and I remember that moment because it’s so inextricably linked to that song.

I also never saw the Police in concert. That’s a shame. But I still have their music and at least that one sweet memory this song invokes.