The Police Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic versions

 (last updated: mm/dd/yyyy)

Early demo – recorded c. January 1977 at Mike Howlett’s attic studio in Acton, London using his TEAC 4-track recorder. This was before Portastudios were available. Sting is the sole performer on the demo. He plays acoustic guitar (the instrument he wrote it on), bass guitar and a small African drum for accompaniment. Beautiful in its rawest form, slightly Latin-inspired feel too. But was clearly too soft and sentimental for The Police at the time, also accounting for the explosion of punk in the UK. Officially released on Police Academy in 1997 by Mike Howlett. Sting performed an acoustic rendition like this demo on VH1 Storytellers in 1996.

1981 demo – recorded by Sting and keyboardist Jean Roussel in early January 1981 at Le Studio (Morin Heights, Canada), engineered by Nick Blagona. Arguably it is a professional demo this time, not a home demo. The drum machine pattern is identifiably the ‘Bossa Nova’ rhythm preset on a Roland CR78, accompanied by percussion and cymbals. Jean added multiple layers of piano and keyboards, developing a new arrangement for the song with a slight Calypso/Caribbean twist. Plenty of multitracked vocals as well, foreshadowing the direction The Police would take with Ghost In The Machine. Allegedly, the song in this form was considered for a possible Sting solo album – quite obvious on this version, as well as its commercial potential – before he decided to try it with The Police and they used the demo. The Le Studio demo in this form remains unreleased. Has circulated among collectors, but unfortunately cuts off before the ending.

Album version – the bass, keyboards and vocals of this were retained from the Le Studio demo, using the multi-track. Stewart’s drums and Andy’s guitars were recorded during the Ghost In The Machine sessions in June/July 1981 at AIR Studios (Montserrat). Hugh Padgham engineered and co-produced this version. The band attempted several takes with played with different arrangements, but they couldn’t recapture the “magic” of the demo (so to speak) or match its commercial potential, hence they ended up using the demo for the final version…

Single version – faded slightly earlier than the album version, with louder lead vocals. You can tell the vocals were simply overlaid onto the album master to slightly enhance it…

Unused(?) single mix – a Le Studio master tape is known to exist, labelled “Magic single mix” and dated to August 1981, which coincides with The Police mixing a double live album there. The said master tape of this mix was rediscovered in the Le Studio tape vaults collection and was sold via reverb.com in 2018. As for the contents, the original owner claims this to be an ‘altogether different’ mix.

Alternate versions from GITM sessions – two alternate takes can be heard in the Everyone Stares documentary. One take consists of straight drums, bass, guitar and some vocals. Another take includes a single piano line playing a similar piano melody to the demo. Jean Roussel – the original keyboard player on the demo – most likely appears, who was flown over to Montserrat to help The Police re-record the song. Both takes are slightly faster than the album version, and neither have been released…

SACD mix – another existing alternate take of “Every Little Thing Is Magic”. Like the album version, the demo from Le Studio was used as the backing. Except that only the drums and guitars are of different takes. Some of the drum fills on the album cut are missing, the guitar part is different during the bridge and so on. No guitar synthesizer washes or reggae chops in the choruses yet. Includes (presumably) Sting’s demo guitar part in the mix, which was a template for the guitar synth part. There are also some lower vocal harmonies more audible. Runs slightly longer on the actual disc, leading to one final (omitted) verse “… and I’ve tried before to tell her” before fading out

Version with longer intro – Starts with around eight extra bars of Stewart’s hi-hat before the main song. Count-ins from Andy(?) in the background. Otherwise identical to the album version. Included on the 'Alternate Sequence' edition of Ghost In The Machine, released on 4 November 2022.