This song was written in 1983.  It was a dark time for Ireland and a dark time for the world in general.  Reagan was raving on about "Evil Empires" and Britain, where I was living at the time, was being turned into an aircraft carrier for US Missiles and Aircraft. In Northern Ireland the reports of killings by rival groups were coming in almost daily.  I was struck, as I always am, by the fact that it is generally young men.... who have hardly had a chance to live yet... who carry out atrocities in the name of various causes...  and often women who are the innocent victims.  That I suppose is the ideological background to the song.

So with notes in this colour here are the lyrics:

Verse 2.
The rain fell slow and steady as it threatened to all day,
Typical Irish weather ?  Gloomy day presaging gloomy events.
As Jim went down the post office for his fortnightly pay.
Unemployed people in Britain used to receive a giro cheque every two weeks with their "dole" or unemployment benefit.  This could be cashed at the post office.  So with this line we now know this newly introduced character is jobless.
Weren't no jobs for Protestants, so what chance a job for Jim.
We now know unemployment is high in Northern Ireland AND Jim must be a Catholic.
He remarked to the six-footer, who stood smiling next to him.
The man he is talking to is nearly two metres tall.  An imposing figure whose very physical presence has already attracted Jim.
"The Brits don't give a fig for us," the stranger he replied.
"But there's men of courage in this town whose comrades for us died."
I was told by an Irish friend, after writing this line, that chance remarks in dole queues have indeed often led to recruitment into one or other of the para-military bully groups that have terrified Ulster for so long.  The word "fig" was changed from "fuck" on my Dad's advice too.

Verse 3.
"Sandra get your skates on, or you'll be late for work again."
A comment from an unnamed third party (Mum or Dad) introduces the third protagonist of the story.  "Get your skates on" is Br.Sl. for "hurry up".
"Who's in the bog?" asked Sandy.  "It's me!" says brother Jim.
The bog is Br.Sl. for the bathroom.  Jim is, of course, the same character we just met in verse two.
Make-up's gotta wait- she thought. Don't need it till tonight.
"Good enough for work" she said.  - Off went her bedroom light.
Domestic images to establish "Sandy" as a normal girl.
"Dad, you gonna eat that bacon?  I don't mean to be rude,
But you should read the paper later, it puts you off your food."
This is Sandy talking.  She is compassionate and caring towards her father.  The bad news he reads everyday is robbing him of his appetite.  It will soon rob him of far more.

Verse 4.
Jim at breakfast argued, as he seemed to more each day,
The only way for Catholics, was Sinn Fein and the I.R.A.
We now know Jim's chance encounter has led to his being recruited.
"Shut your mouth!" cried Sandy.  "No talk of violence here!"
"Why can't we live in peace?" she asked. "Why must we live in fear?"
The cry of every woman since Lysistrata ?
Jim boasted he would get a gun with which to make a stand.
For gun read "weapon" and you have the boast of every adolescent male since Cain ?
While mother in the kitchen said a prayer for Ireland.
The unanswered prayers of every mother since religion was invented.

Verse 5.
"B" company out on duty, turned fast into the square.
A house had been surrounded. "There's a gunman loose in there."
Our initial protagonists return.  An anonymous shout alerting them to the danger.  We can guess who is being referred to since it follows so closely on Jim's boast.
Who fired the first shots was later in dispute.
As it often is in such incidents.  A deliberate echo of "Bloody Sunday" here though.
But Sandy was their victim, that no one could refute.
In cold journalistic language we learn of the death of that happy caring young girl we have only just met.
"Will you please put down the rifle son." His father's face was grim.
"Dad get down, she's beyond help" in commanding voice cried Jim.
Father's pleas will go unheard.  The young man with the gun has grown in stature - at least in his own eyes - as he essays his new "commanding voice".

Verse 6.
He fired off a clip before they burst through the back door -
A single shot - Jim joined his mother praying on the floor.
The naive young "no hoper" adolescent has made his stand and stood his last.
The road went strangely silent, the crowd stood still and watched,
Jim's corpse get carried out, someone noting "He's no socks."
Some people I have sung this to have hated this line as "sticking out like a sore thumb" - However, I think it sums up perfectly the sort of inadequate and inappropriate remark that often really does accompany a tragedy.  How many people reading this have had their mother tell them to wear clean underwear in case you have an accident and are taken to hospital?
The page three blonde whose name the soldier spoke with his last breath,
Suddenly, we know that Jim's spent clip also has a victim.  Another poor young adolescent life has been snuffed out by senseless violence.
Would never know that day she'd played the dark angel of death.
And finally the fourth protagonist... who gives name to the song.  The fantasy woman the young "virgin soldier" has seen in the newspaper has had the role of "dark angel of death" thrust upon her unbeknownst.

So tell me.....Do my notes here destroy your enjoyment of the song... not allowing you to make the connections?  Or do they illuminate the song for you?
Answers by e-mail please

Am                                    Dm     G                    Am
They crowded round "The Sun" open at page three,
E                            F                        G                        Am
The bunch of adolescent lads who formed "B" company,
                                    F                    G              Am
The front page told of threats issued by the I.R.A.
        Dm                                                           E
But they'd turned straight to the dolly bird, as they did every day.
Bb                                        Am                   Bb                            Am
"Christ what a pair of show stoppers.  She sure puts lead in my gun"
                G                                         F            G            Am
Said one keeper of the peace - some English mother's son.