So Long, Marianne

Marianne Ihlen inspired the song; she and Cohen met on Hydra in 1960. In a note on the back cover of a 1976 release, Cohen wrote that it began in Montreal and was finished at the Chelsea Hotel, and that he had not thought he was saying goodbye but guessed he was. Ihlen said the original words were "Come on, Marianne." Nancy Priddy sings backing vocals on the recording.

Ihlen died in Oslo on 28 July 2016, and Cohen wrote to her, "Safe travels old friend." He died that November. The song re-entered charts in 2016, reaching number 28 in France. The documentary Marianne & Leonard: Words of Love, by Nick Broomfield, premiered at Sundance on 27 January 2019. Cohen played the song at the Isle of Wight in 1970, filmed by Murray Lerner.

Cohen told Paul Zollo that he wrote it in two hotels, the Chelsea and the Penn Terminal. The song ranked number 6 in a 2014 Rolling Stone readers poll of his songs and number 190 on Pitchfork's list of the top 200 songs of the 1960s. Cohen's farewell email to Ihlen said he was a little behind her, close enough to take her hand.