Songfacts®:

• Not to be confused with the Leonard Cohen song "Sisters of Mercy," this was a UK hit for Thompson Twins inspired by a news story that band members Tom Bailey and Alannah Currie heard about.
  
  The song tells the story of a woman who kills her husband after years of abuse. The real case took place in France, where the killing was ruled a "crime of passion" and not tried as a murder. In our interview with Tom Bailey, he explained: "We started talking about this in an intellectual political sense, and then realized it would be a great subject for a song, and a very difficult one, as well.
  
  The subject is domestic abuse, domestic violence, and yet it just seemed to be part of everyone's life. To deny it would be would be too scared."
• This song started out as a poem written by Alannah Currie. The poem was written from the point of view of the woman, so they altered the lyric so Tom Bailey could sing it. This was common practice for the group, as they usually had to tweak the gender of Currie's lyrics.