Songfacts®:

• Bread has long been a staple of the human diet, and a breadwinner is a person whose work provides the income for a family or household. This moody track finds Kacey Musgraves warning her sisterhood about men who feel threatened by their partner being the main breadwinner.
• Traditionally, the man is the breadwinner in the household, but the dynamic has changed over the last few decades. This song serves as a warning to other women that some guys can't handle it when his partner brings home the dough.
  
  At first, they're happy to live off their lover's hard work.
  
  He wants a breadwinner
  He wants your dinner
  Until he ain't hungry anymore
  
  After a while their ego gets affected, and the men feel emasculated by their partners' success.
  
  He wants your shimmer
  To make him feel bigger
  Until he starts feeling insecure
• Musgraves recorded the song for Star-Crossed, an album inspired by her divorce from Ruston Kelly, her husband of two years. Kelly is, like Musgraves, a country singer-songwriter, but with much less commercial success. It begs the question of whether this is the country star's acerbic kiss-off explaining why her marriage broke down. If this is indeed the case, Kelly does not come out of it well.
• Musgraves wrote the song with:
  
  Her Golden Hour co-producer Ian Fitchuk.
  
  Californian singer-songwriter Ilsey Juber and frequent Bon Iver collaborator BJ Burton. They also co-wrote the Star-Crossed track "Justified.
• Musgraves co-produced the song with Ian Fitchuk and Daniel Tashian. They co-produced her entire Star-Crossed album and collaborated on her previous record, Golden Hour (2018), as well.