So Long, Marianne

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. ~Leonard Cohen

The very sing-a-long nature of this song made it a favourite among Cohen fans. Consisting of some 9 published verses, I know of no single performance or recording that uses all of them. On tour Cohen would select any of them for a performance, vary the order in which they were played and alter the arrangement on different tours. The audience could never be sure of which version it would get, but it was always sure to be a crowd-pleaser. The song was written for (or about) the very beautiful Marianne Ihlen, the Norwegian partner of Leonard through most of the 1960’s when he lived on the Greek island of Hydra. He claimed she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and was endowed with an old-world charm in her manner which he appreciated very much. The relationship gradually dissipated as Cohen’s recording career began to rise in the late ‘60’s. She was, he said, his muse for a number of works, among them: “So Long, Marianne”, “Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye”, and “Bird on the Wire”. It was her picture, taken in his home on Hydra, that was put on the back cover of Cohen’s second album Songs from a Room. They remained on friendly terms up to the death of Marianne in July of 2016 — some three months before Cohen himself would pass away.

Rather than tell a story in this song of the time spent with Marianne, Cohen selects moments from the relationship where issues arose, tensions were apparent, roles were played, appreciation was given and packs these moments into short four line verses. The result is a portrayal of elements in relationships that carries a universal appeal for both men and women.  Some verses may resonate more with some people and less with others but all the verses have a common appeal.

The original recorded version and most of Cohen’s performances of the song began with this verse first. (One notable exception is the 1993 performance in Oslo, Norway, which began with Julie Christenson and Perla Batalla singing the “Here comes the morning boat…” verse. Cohen employed a similar technique again in 1993 for the opening of a taped performance of “Democracy” having Christenson and Batalla sing, in glorious a capella style, the chorus of the song first: “Sail on, sail on, O mighty ship of state…” – a captivating effect.)

The opening two lines capture a warm moment early in the relationship and work well to grab the attention of the listener. The third and fourth lines provide a later evaluation by the author of the first two lines. It is not so much a judgement of his previous self as an acknowledgement that he is no longer the person he thought he was before the relationship moved to a more permanent level. It is a sentiment understood by many that the commitment to a long lasting relationship (marriage or otherwise) changes a person’s views over time. It may be a positive or negative change, but more importantly the change happens.

Continuing with early moments in the relationship, this verse identifies the roles the two have taken on in the beginning of their association. In this case Cohen is regarded as some kind of saviour to Marianne, thus the reference to being held onto “like I was a crucifix”. The final line is interesting, unusual even, in the sense that making your way by kneeling in the dark is an unusual action. More common would be walking, or strolling, even running – just about anything else – so why “kneeling”? Perhaps it rolls better off the tongue. The syllabic density is the same as ‘walking’ – a term you would think would be more readily accepted by the listener. Perhaps, given the previous image of a crucifix, kneeling carries a biblical sense of penance…two lovers paying their dues for past faults in an attempt to head into the future with a cleaner, brighter promise. If nothing else Cohen was deliberate in his use of words – this is not a casual throw off of a term. The verse reflects a common element of relationships: we play roles at different times and under different circumstances and those roles can change as the relationship and partners develop in their personal lives.

The next verse gives an assessment of the relationship and points out a particular issue for Cohen. He is, first and foremost, a seeker of spiritual truth. The observations, the reasonings, the understandings, the conclusions presented in his writing, whether poetry, prose or lyric, are wrapped up in his need to understand and report on the spiritual forces and laws at work in our lives. From his understanding of the nature of love in a connection to Jesus mirroring the same type of love between man and woman so succinctly presented in “Suzanne” to the stirring response of Hineni, Hineni in “You Want It Darker” at the end of his career, Leonard Cohen was a devoted seeker. Attaching no blame to Marianne, he wrestles with this core aspect of his character: it is in his nature to go out and seek the truth of things and he cannot reconcile this drive to engage the world with the comfort and security of a domestic lifestyle. Moreso, when he gives too much attention to the domestic life, he loses touch with the part of himself which is the source of his education in the world. He falls out of favour with the ‘angels’ and then the relationship itself suffers. More to the universal appeal of this condition, many partners in a relationship sense the need to be doing something which allows them to express their own fundamental individuality. If the relationship cannot find a way to accommodate this drive, the relationship will suffer, perhaps come to an end.

The next verse is an encapsulation of the “come and go” nature of Cohen’s relationship with Marianne. It skillfully combines time, travel, character, action and the bittersweet fallout. Cohen travelled a lot over the course of the relationship and more out of necessity than desire. He would often return in the early days to Montreal to spend months earning enough money to live for a while on Hydra and write. Later the demands of the music business, publishing, even war would draw him away from his home on Hydra and Marianne. Whether coming or going, by train or by boat, there is the image of Marianne appearing only to wave goodbye again. At the point where the going outweighs the coming and absence surpasses presence, it seems only a matter of time before the relationship will fade – and it did. Although not all relationships experience this condition to this degree, some are more sensitive to it in smaller doses. It is an issue most of us can relate to.

All romantic relationships have varying degrees, of course, when it comes to intimate matters. The first two lines of this verse are suggestive of a special need for intimacy. Tied to the following two lines it seems to come to an abrupt end when the ‘curiosity’ of one offends the other. The final line acting as a somewhat limp excuse, likely shouted at the offended partner as they slam the door on the way out: “Being curious doesn’t mean I’m brave enough to actually do it!” I prefer to take this verse as an expression of Cohen’s sense of humour rather than disappointment.

The next four verses deal with varying aspects of absence and its effect on the relationship. Verse 6 explains that even though Marianne, through letters, consoles him with the thought that she is ‘beside’ him while he is away, Cohen still feels ‘all alone’. The next two lines express a sentiment open to a variety of meanings. From one point of view it is a feeling said often enough that a relationship can make one feel “tied down”: “your fine spider web/Is fastening my ankle to a stone”. From another perspective it can be seen as a safety line against falling (into something undefined) if you are standing on a ledge. Constraint or safety – it echoes a bit of the same condition elaborated in verse three above.

The next verse expands on a condition often experienced by disconnected partners: the memory (or lack of) of the other. For Cohen his memory of her eyes, perhaps the most dominant facial feature of a partner, has faded. He cannot recall them in detail. He does remember her body in the sea and how it seemed to so naturally belong there. And then it is linked to another thought: “How come you gave away your news to everyone?”. There is no reference to anything specific that the news refers to, but as “news” it is something never previously shared. When posed as a question it carries the tone of calling to account the one to whom it is spoken. We don’t really need to know specifically what the news is, it is not important. It is the response given in the following line that is important: “I thought you said it was a secret just for me”. And there it is, that sense of betrayal which can pop up so unexpectedly in close relationships. Sometimes resolvable, sometimes not; sometimes simply put aside as unimportant, sometimes left festering and unresolved. Presentation of another common aspect of relationships.

The next verse speaks to the uncommon bond between the partners. In their absence where do you keep the memory of them? In the same place you keep the memories of anyone close to you? Not good enough insists Cohen – that is too far away. There is a special place we keep those most close to us, and it is much closer than anyone else.

The final verse is one that is heard in almost every performance and most of the time as the final verse. It is bittersweet and echoes once again a theme mentioned previously. Cohen opens this verse in a voice from some point in the future looking back on the relationship. He acknowledges once again the beauty of Marianne even though he is no longer with her – the ‘sweet’ aspect of the relationship. The next line confirms they are no longer together and Marianne has, in fact, moved on to some one else (she has “changed her name again”). Looking back on their time together an acknowledgment of the bitter is expressed in the following two lines. “Climbing the mountainside” is a poetic device for struggling to understand something. The fact that it is a ‘mountainside’ indicates the degree of the struggle – it’s big. The struggle is, of course, with understanding the nature of the relationship. What the struggle yields is the ability to see something for what it is (“wash my eyelids in the rain”), an understanding of the situation and an accommodation of the demands it requires from the individual. In this case the understanding of the relationship has come too late: Marianne has moved on.

The song is structured so that the chorus is repeated after each verse. The chorus is a call to reflect on the previous verse: “It’s time we began/To laugh and cry/And cry and laugh/ About it all again”. Of course the assumption is that the issue can be taken out of the current sphere of stress or argument and put behind them where it can be viewed as a memory not a threat.