Like two other songs from Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, "Cowgirl in the Sand" and "Down by the River", Young wrote "Cinnamon Girl" while he was suffering from the flu with a high fever at his home in Topanga, California.

(The 45 rpm single mix of the song, in addition to being in mono and cutting off the guitar outro, features Whitten's vocal more prominently than the album version.)

[9] Young has said that he wrote the song "for a city girl on peeling pavement coming at me through Phil Ochs' eyes playing finger cymbals.

"[3] Critic John Mendelsohn felt the song conveyed a message of "desperation begetting brutal vindictiveness," hinted at by the "almost impenetrably subjective words" but carried strongly by the sound of Crazy Horse's "heavy, sinister accompaniment.

[10] Fans and news outlets have also speculated whether or not the song referred to Jim Morrison's common-law wife, Pamela Courson.

[citation needed] According to his autobiography, "Cinnamon Girl" was the first record played by the now-legendary British DJ "Whispering Bob" Harris on his BBC Radio 1 debut in August 1970.