“Bread and Roses” song

Question

I'm completely stumped. For the last few weeks I've had a rather persistent earworm. The line which plays over and over in my head is this: "she wants bread, and her roses too"

I'm pretty sure it's not the workers' anthem. I know this is nebulous, but I have this feeling that the line is just something that the songwriter thought sounded good.

I'm not sure if the singer is male or female, as the voice in my head doesn't seem particularly masculine or feminine.

About the only thing I can think is that maybe I heard the song sometime between 1995 - 2005, though that doesn't necessarily mean it was released in that time period.

Google has been a bust.

Can anyone help?

Answer 1

There's a famous workers' anthem called "Bread and Roses". It's been set to music three times, the most well-known setting is probably this one, written by Mimi Farina: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWkVcaAGCi0 .

The line you mention doesn't appear as such in the actual song, but the song was inspired by a speech containing a very similar line: "The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too." Perhaps you heard a version of the song containing a direct quote of the speech?