Suzanne Elrod

Suzanne Elrod (born 1959) is an American artist who was the romantic companion of Canadian singer Leonard Cohen in the 1970s.

A common misconception is that Leonard Cohen wrote the song "Suzanne" after her, however, Cohen published the song in 1966, three years before meeting Suzanne. Cohen, actually, had written the song about another Suzanne, Suzanne Verdal, a Canadian dancer and choreographer who was formerly married to French-Canadian sculptor Armand Vaillancourt.

Cohen wrote the song "Suzanne" as a poem in 1965/66. It was first recorded as a song by Judy Collins for her album In My Life in November 1966. In 1967 Cohen recorded the song in his debut album Songs of Leonard Cohen.

Cohen had met Florida native Suzanne Elrod in 1969, nearly three years after writing that song. According to Cohen's biography by music journalist Sylvie Simmons, the New York Times noted that Leonard had met Suzanne Elrod at a Scientology class in 1969—the same year Cohen would meet his future zen master, Kyozan Joshu Sasaki. At the time, Leonard was 35 and Suzanne was 19.

The two fell in love and had two children—Adam Cohen (born 1972) and Lorca Cohen (born 1974). In the early 1970s, Elrod took the cover photograph for Cohen's album Live Songs (Columbia Records, 1973).

Elrod is pictured on the cover of Cohen's fifth studio album Death of a Ladies' Man(Warner Bros Records, 1977). In 1978, Cohen released a book of poetry with the slightly altered title Death of a Lady's Man. Elrod is the inspiration behind the "Dark Lady" of this book.

Suzanne and Cohen separated in 1979. He later stated that "cowardice" and "fear" prevented him from marrying her.

Suzanne had two children with Leonard—Adam (born 1972) and Lorca (born 1974), who was named after Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.

Adam is a singer-songwriter and the lead singer of California-based pop-rock band Low Millions founded in 2004. Lorca is a photographer and videographer who shot the music video for Cohen's song "Because Of" (2004). She also worked on his 2008–10 world tour.