‘It was the year I came out as gay. When we went to the Grammys, religious groups were picketing outside’

We’d hired a little place in Vancouver to write songs. I’d been listening to Black Crow by Joni Mitchell and said to Ben, my songwriting partner: “Wouldn’t it be great if we could do a song with similar, flowing open chords?” I sat down with a little Casio keyboard and the music came quickly, but I struggled to write lyrics for months. Then one day I just sat at the window with a typewriter and the phrase “constant craving” came into my head. Once I had that, the lyrics flowed.

I was singing off-key and didn’t know why – then I had root canal surgery and was cured” [k d lang]