Labour & Pop Culture: Bread and Roses

This week’s installment of Labour & Pop Culture is “Bread and Roses”. This song has its origins in a speech by Rose Schneiderman, a US suffragette and labour activist from the early of the 20th century. She said:

What the woman who labors wants is the right to live, not simply exist — the right to life as the rich woman has the right to life, and the sun and music and art. You have nothing that the humblest worker has not a right to have also. The worker must have bread, but she must have roses, too. Help, you women of privilege, give her the ballot to fight with.

The line “bread and roses” gave rise to a poem and then several songs about workers’ need for not just sustenance, but also dignity. The most famous version is by Judy Collins (or maybe Joan Baez), the arrangement that appeared most recently in the movie Pride.



John Denver also recorded it to a different (more Celtic) melody.



As we go marching, marching in the beauty of the day
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses
For the people hear us singing: “Bread and roses! Bread and roses!”

As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men
For they are women's children, and we mother them again
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient song of bread
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew
Yes, it is bread we fight for - but we fight for roses, too!

As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days
The rising of the women means the rising of the race
No more the drudge and idler — ten that toil where one reposes
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes
Hearts starve as well as bodies;
Bread and roses! Bread and roses!

-- Bob Barnetson