Songfacts®:

• In this song Blige describes how hard it is for her producer husband Kendu Isaacs to deal with her when she's premenstrual. She told the Daily Telegraph February 7, 2008 about this song: "'Roses' is about just those days, and all women know which ones I mean!" She added that the song was Isaacs' idea. "I'd had a terrible day the day before I recorded it - I just wanted to be in a dark hole with sweet and salty things and not be bothered. My husband was asking me what was wrong and I said: 'The exact same thing that was wrong with me last month.' I lost my cool, I lost my mind, I was just really emotional. So the next day in the studio, my husband said: 'OK, talk about how you feel,' and I said, 'Give me the green light and I'm going for it.' I freestyled it. And when I heard myself saying the things I'd been thinking, like 'you suck it up, you figure it out', I made myself laugh."
• Blige also sang about her monthly woes in "PMS," from her 2001 album, No More Drama.
• Blige wrote this with Christopher "Tricky" Stewart and Terius "The-Dream" Nash, the team behind Rihanna's hit "Umbrella."
• Growing Pains, Blige's eighth studio album, earned her the ninth Grammy of her career when it won the award for Best Contemporary R&B Album in 2009. She won her first Grammy in 1996 for "I'll Be There for You/You're All I Need to Get By," a duet with Method Man, which was named Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group.