lang released this single in 1992, and its substance and artistry impressed music critics in North America and abroad. It charted in several countries, and won lang the 1993 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The music video for the song won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Music Video.

When the makers of Balletlujah (a 2014 documentary about lang and the portrait ballet based on her life and music) asked her about the feeling that inspired the song, she said:

I was sitting at my house at my typewriter, and in my head I heard the phrase ‘constant craving'. When I wrote it, I felt it deeply, but I honestly can’t tell you what I was craving at the time. Sex? Love? Something cold to drink? I don’t remember. As a Buddhist I struggle with desire, but sometimes I just embrace it. Acknowledging it, contemplating it, and making friends with it is one of my lifelong journeys.