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WEBMISTRESS speculates:
While this song is a little vague, I believe she is addressing Lindsey again. The opening begins by describing a stormy night, full of "anger" mixed with notions of "honour" - perhaps that day of the official breakup with FM, which was reportedly VERY unpleasant. Now he's free of them, and she's "free" in the same way, but she doesn't seem to enjoy it. She considers it "fleeting" - she feels like he could have found it another way. And now that's he's gone, she wonders if maybe she shouldn't have gone with him. After all, they got into it together - she "was with him" - she was foolish to think that after he left she would be able to carry on with FM as if nothing had happened.
The next verse talks about his beauty (see Long Distance Winner) and his "high spirit," but there was also a dark side to him that "cut [her] like a knife." His words have made her feel "totally rejected." She goes on to talk about those eyes again (see Blue Denim) and those looks they gave each other - ever seen The Dance during Silver Springs? But no matter how often he "looks at [her] with daggers" it doesn't do any good - now that he's gone for good, those looks are wasted. Looking at the fiasco their relationship had become, Stevie can only shake her head at this "freedom" from each other and call herself a "poor little fool." Once upon a time she had left him - how ironic that his leaving affected her so much that she felt she was a fool for trying to continue in FM without him.
JOHN speculates:
I'm a big Stevie fan and I came across something the other day that you guys might find interesting. I picked up a book of Oscar Wilde stories and read THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY and THE HAPPY PRINCE. Stevie must be a big Wilde fan, because she DIRECTLY QUOTES him in these two songs [this one and Kick It]:
In chapter 16 of Dorian Gray (a scene in which Dorian is confronted by James Vane, a merchant marine who intends to kill him for causing the death of his actress sister Sibyl Vane eighteen years before), the text reads:
"Dim and wavering as was the wind blown light, yet it served to show him the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, and all the untainted purity of youth".
James Vane has the right man, but he spares Dorian's life because of the false look of youth he's been afforded by the magic of the decaying picture hidden away in his attic.
Elsewhere in the book, the devil is referred to as "the morning star of evil".
I don't think you can really understand the meaning of this song without considering the theme of the book - maintaining a surface youth while decaying inside. Stevie is using Wilde and DORIAN GRAY to get at things beyond simple relationship issues - she writes the song both from the perspective of the dead actress, Sybil Vane, and Dorian Gray. This has got to be one her most intensely psychological songs. It's almost as if she's mourning the dead part of herself (Sybil Vane) and the glamorous but corrupt part that's taken over (Dorian Gray). I don't think it's any coincidence that the scene in the book takes place at night outside of an opium den down by the wharves of London - Stevie was still struggling with drugs when she wrote this song, and probably felt that she was killing the best part of herself.
ANDRE speculates:
It is about the break up of FM. Lindsey would not tour and left the band.
Daggers is all about Lindsey. She is the poor little fool.
They could not work together anymore. It was on the first album without Lindsey and Stevie was trying to get back at him!