Dance on your knees

You've doubtless heard it before, but "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic" by the Police fully awakened me to the pleasures of pop music in 1982, when I was 11. MTV was new in our house, and I found the videos from the group's 1981 release Ghost in the Machine record particularly enthralling -- especially the clip for "Every Little Thing," its discomfiting neocolonialist imagery notwithstanding.

My Police fandom went off the charts in 1983, when Synchronicity came out, then waned slowly and painfully over the course of Sting's solo career.

But I still love this song, and when I was a lad I thought the jazzy piano chords and weird synthesizer arpeggios that kick in at 2:23 were the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard. I think maybe I still do.