Songfacts®:

• Patti wrote this song about her mother Beverly, who died September 19, 2002, and about her own experience as a mother. There are mother themes throughout the album.
• This is written in a classic 1950s - early 1960s slow-rock style reminiscent of the Crystals' 1962 song "He Hit Me (It Felt Like A Kiss)".
• The closing riff contains a homage to one of rock's more cryptic songs, 1963's "Sally Go Round the Roses," interwoven with a fragment of "Golden Mother," a poem Patti wrote for her mom's memorial service, in her usual overdubbed recitative voice.
• Live performances of this feature a projection of a pretty picture of Beverly as a young lady surrounded by millions of whirling roses.
• Beverly was a waitress and nightclub singer. She ran Patti's fan club and answered a lot of the fan mail. She enjoyed doing housework to Patti's more uptempo pieces. She loved roses but was allergic to them. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Ekristheh - Halath, for all above