21 November 1981
The sparkling piano part gives a lilt and charm that befit the song title. “It’s a big enough umbrella / But it’s always me who ends up getting wet” is a genuinely lovely lyric. Plus it’s not about horny schoolteachers. ‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic’ has more to recommend it than most Police singles.
Unfortunately, the sine qua non of any Police single is that it is sung by the singer of The Police. Sure enough, Sting’s trademark passive-aggressive huffing soon clouds over this song’s likeability. ‘Magic’ is rhymed with ‘tragic’. Braying ee-oh-ohs are plastered over a sunny piano coda that threatens to upstage the real centre of attention. And while any other reasonably competent singer would carry the romantic wooziness of lines like “I resolve to call her up / A thousand times a day / And ask her if she’ll marry me / In some old-fashioned way”, from our Gordon it sounds like the warnings of a stalker or sex pest – like the unlovely ‘Every Breath You Take’, once this near miss at witty warmth has passed and normal Police service resumes.
