The Leonard Cohen Lyric Paying Tribute, and Saying Goodbye, to His Favorite Muse

Leonard Cohen was gifted with rare songwriting talents. Still, like all top writers, he received more than a little help along the way from the people he encountered who ended up inspiring his work. Call them muses, if you will.

There’s no doubt that one special relationship made a major impact on his work. The song “So Long, Marianne” name-dropped this woman. But it also served as a kind of preemptive farewell to their relationship.

Leonard and Marianne

In 1960, Leonard Cohen was an aspiring poet and writer when he met Marianne Ihlen. They were both staying on Hydra, an idyllic island in Greece. The two struck up a relationship, as Ihlen had recently been separated from her husband. Cohen and Ihlen’s relationship would last for the better part of a decade.

Even after they no longer saw each other romantically, Cohen continued to hold her in high regard. During tours toward the end of his career, Cohen would leave tickets for Ihlen at shows near her. He wrote a touching note to her during the final days of her life in 2016. Cohen would pass away a few months later as well.

There’s no better evidence for the intensity of Cohen’s feelings for Ihlen than the lyrics to several of his early songs. The song most obviously inspired by Ihlen is “So Long, Marianne,” which appeared on his landmark 1967 debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen. On the back cover of his 1976 Greatest Hits album, Cohen explained the song and its connection to Ihlen:

“I began this on Aylmer Street in Montreal and finished it a year or so later at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. I didn’t think I was saying goodbye but I guess I was. She gave me many songs, and she has given songs to others too. She is a Muse.”

Exploring the Lyrics to “So Long, Marianne”

Cohen couches the details of his actual conversations and activities with Ihlen in metaphors throughout “So Long, Marianne.” But the overall feel of the song is one of retrospection, a look at how they’ve reached this point in their relationship, which seems to be the point of no return.

The narrator’s gratitude for what she’s done for him is undeniable, but he still realizes their affair has run its course. He recalls how he brought his wandering days to an end when she met him: I used to think I was some kind of Gypsy boy / Before I let you take me home. But fate, once on their side, has turned: I forget to pray for the angels / And then the angels forget to pray for us.

After reminiscing about the earliest days together, how they both needed each other so desperately, he contrasts that with his current feelings: Your letters they all say you’re beside me now / Then why do I feel alone? As sentimental as he may be about the past, he doesn’t sugarcoat their present: I’m standing on a ledge and your fine spider web / Is fastening my ankle to a stone.

While he admits there’s still a connection (For now I need your hidden love), it’s clear they’re slowly starting to separate. He suggests she’s already moved on, even as he comes to her for succor and redemption as he once did: I see you’ve gone and changed your name again / And just when I climbed this whole mountainside / To wash my eyelids in the rain.

The moving chorus speaks to sad endings and inevitable new beginnings: Now so long, Marianne / It’s time that we began / To laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again. “So Long, Marianne” is the kind of farewell that you send someone when you know that they’ll stay in your heart forever, and history proved that was certainly the case between Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen.

Photo by Roz Kelly/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images