Longing was to have been Dusty Springfield's second LP for the ABC Dunhill Records label, and ninth studio album overall, recorded in 1974 and planned for release the same year. Most of the Longing recordings were mixed and released much later on the compilations Simply Dusty (2000) and Beautiful Soul: The ABC Dunhill Collection (2001).

Longing was recorded in Blauvelt, New York and produced by Brooks Arthur, best known for his work as a sound engineer for Phil Spector and Bert Berns through most of the 1960s and later as a composer and producer in his own right for among others Neil Diamond, Bette Midler, Van Morrison and Janis Ian. Elements was the working title of the album but it was re-titled and advertised as Longing in the music press near the end of 1974 and had at that stage also officially been given a catalogue number: DSD-50186. Springfield complained in interviews later in the seventies that some producers of her previous album, Cameo, had not even asked: "what key I wanted to sing in". Not used to being so uninvolved in her own work (owing partly to her own reported perfectionist tendencies), suffering from self-esteem issues due to her rapidly declining career, and enduring problems with substance abuse, Springfield abandoned the Longing album altogether late in the year.

The only track from the Longing sessions to be given an official release in the 1970s was "I Am Your Child", though only the instrumental track (featuring the song's writer, Barry Manilow) was used. Springfield recorded new lead vocals over the original backing track and the song was released as the B-side of her 1977 US single "Let Me Love You Once Before You Go" on the United Artists label. In 1980 the re-recorded version was in turn issued as the B-side of the Philips Records UK single "Your Love Still Brings Me to My Knees" and "I Am Your Child" subsequently found its way onto the compilation album Love Songs released by Phonogram in Europe in the late 1980s. The song is also of special significance in the history of Manilow's own career as he claims it is the first song he ever wrote.

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