Song: Constant Craving Songwriters: k.d. lang/Ben Mink

Was it really 1992 when Constant Craving by k.d. Lang was released? That’s more than 30 years ago! And that’s also a sign that you really love a song when it sticks with you (or, in this case, me) for so long.

For many years brain researchers have studied the phenomenon of music and its effects on the brain. For some people, it can induce more powerful memories than taste or smell, which is saying a lot!

In my opinion, the lyrics for Constant Craving must have been particularly personal:

Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

I see this as the singer recognizing her own strength in the toughest of times. k.d. lang likely had to struggle a lot with herself growing up, as so many of us do for different reasons.

She was born in Alberta, Canada and came bursting onto the music scene as a young country singer in the 80’s. Her first band was The Reclines and my initial memory is a vision of her in a cowgirl outfit, dancing wildly across the stage. The media referred to her as a Canadian Cowpunk. And…she had — has — a powerful voice.

But let’s get back to the song. It was co-written with Ben Mink, another Canadian songwriter and producer. What gets to me in this song is the music…the chord progression, especially in the verses, married to the vocal melody, is magic. There is so much musical yearning and desire between the notes. Definitely a constant craving.

It is in the key of Fm, but I play it on my guitar in Em with a capo on the 1st fret. The bass is what gives some of the chords an unusual feel…playing a C or a G bass note over a D chord, for instance.

The background harmonies in the production of the song are also powerful. I can recognize lang’s voice there in some of them, but I’m not sure if they are all her.

There must have been something magical about that song, because Mick Jagger and Keith Richards actually gave credit to k.d. lang and Ben Mink on the Rolling Stones song “Anybody Seen My Baby”. Why? Because the three words “seen my baby” in the Stones’ song are exactly the same notes as “constant craving”. When it was pointed out, the Stones decided to share the rights instead of making a fuss.

What a breath of fresh air compared to so many other musical/lyrical rip offs and lawsuits!

Constant Craving has always been. On my playlist, that is. Here is the song followed by the lyrics:

Constant Craving

Even through the darkest phase
Be it thick or thin
Always someone marches brave
Here beneath my skin

And constant craving
Has always been

Maybe a great magnet pulls
All souls towards truth
Or maybe it is life itself
Feeds wisdom
To its youth

Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah-ha
Constant craving
Has always been
Has always been

Constant craving
Has always been
Constant craving
Has always been

Craving
Ah-ha
Constant craving
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been
Has always been