Reading some comments here are different to how i interpret the song! It has never evoked the idea of abuse when I hear it... more the psycological effects of love! The uncontollable effects of life and destiny or fate. The strong imagery in the song definitely strikes as the narrator being internally damaged by her own feelings of love for another. I feel it's a song about someone who is used to playing with other peoples' emotions, has had many lovers but has never really felt affected by them although they (the soldiers/ men) have been hurt or in love with her. She has now fallen in love with someone and is feeling the pain and torment. She recalls all the lovers who where in love her and how she never really cared about how they felt when they fell. It was all just a game to her- hence the mocking smile of Marlene (Marlene Dietrich) who she aspired to be while she played the field, a kind of playful fantasy, taking on the role of a cruel femme fatale. But now she is the one who falls hard..she sees the dark side of it all. The imagery of blood portrays her damage, this lover leaves 'fingerprints' which we associate with crime or murder. She is beginning to realise what she has done to others with reference to a butcher. She is changing now realising that her past promiscuity was not really much fun for others as it was for her. It gives the sense that she has been shocked or traumatised into changing the way she behaves through realisation!
Reading some comments here are different to how i interpret the song! It has never evoked the idea of abuse when I hear it... more the psycological effects of love! The uncontollable effects of life and destiny or fate. The strong imagery in the song definitely strikes as the narrator being internally damaged by her own feelings of love for another. I feel it's a song about someone who is used to playing with other peoples' emotions, has had many lovers but has never really felt affected by them although they (the soldiers/ men) have been hurt or in love with her. She has now fallen in love with someone and is feeling the pain and torment. She recalls all the lovers who where in love her and how she never really cared about how they felt when they fell. It was all just a game to her- hence the mocking smile of Marlene (Marlene Dietrich) who she aspired to be while she played the field, a kind of playful fantasy, taking on the role of a cruel femme fatale. But now she is the one who falls hard..she sees the dark side of it all. The imagery of blood portrays her damage, this lover leaves 'fingerprints' which we associate with crime or murder. She is beginning to realise what she has done to others with reference to a butcher. She is changing now realising that her past promiscuity was not really much fun for others as it was for her. It gives the sense that she has been shocked or traumatised into changing the way she behaves through realisation!