Dagger

Halstead wrote Dagger in summer 1992, during the two weeks he spent in rural Wales, at the same time as 40 Days. It closes Souvlaki and was never released as a single. PopMatters hears him singing and strumming an acoustic guitar alone, casting himself as the one who caused the hurt. Halstead said in 2014 that the song is about very specific things and that he can relate it to a particular time in his life. He has said that the lyrics he wrote in Wales were informed by his solitude there and by the end of his relationship with Goswell. He described the songs of that period as stark and much more personal.

A fuller, band-style version of the song has circulated on bootlegs for decades and is not very different from the album take. The upload in the hypersongs web is titled Official Audio.

Live

Slowdive did not play it in their original run. Halstead probably performed it solo for the first time in 2013, and the band first played it in full on 26 July 2014 in Shanghai, on the reunion tour. It appears in 197 logged Slowdive setlists.