"Cinnamon Girl" finds the singer daydreaming about a girl to love, waiting "between shows" for his lover. Neil Young wrote the song while suffering from the flu with a high fever, and described it as being for "a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me through Phil Ochs' eyes playing finger cymbals." The lyrics have been called "cryptic love lyrics" and "exotic and allusive without really saying anything at all," leading some to speculate about their meaning, though Young denied it refers to Jim Morrison's common-law wife. The song debuted on Young's 1969 album Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, his first with backing band Crazy Horse, and features Danny Whitten singing high harmony against Young's low harmony. It plays like a yearning, dreamlike search for connection.