Do Not Forget Old Friends

Do Not Forget Old Friends - meaning Summary

Memory and Estrangement

Leonard Cohen's brief lyric asks a partner to remember friends they knew before the speaker arrived. The narrator admits ignorance of those earlier relationships, presents himself as solitary, and characterizes his visits as brief, almost predatory intrusions. The poem examines how social memory and shared history shape belonging, and how one can feel marginal within someone else’s established world. It reads as a restrained plea to respect and preserve older bonds rather than erasing them to accommodate a later arrival.