Mitchell's use of multi-tracking with her guitar to mix four separate tracks of his carefully arranged bass parts, having them all play together at certain points of the tune. Side two of Hejira begins with the epic "Song for Sharon", which at eight minutes and 40 seconds stands as the longest track on the album. The lyrics deal with the conflict faced by a woman who is deciding between freedom and marriage. The song references the places Mitchell went during her trip to New York City, including scenes at Mandolin Brothers guitar store in Staten Island and a visit to a fortune teller on Bleecker Street. The song was allegedly written while Mitchell was high on cocaine at the end of her visit to the city. The namesake of the song was her childhood friend Sharon Bell, who studied voice and wanted to be a singer when she was young but married a farmer; Mitchell wanted to be a farmer's wife, but ended up becoming a singer. The song also mentions the blowout fight and abandoned midwestern tour that served as the death knell for Mitchell's relationship with Guerin: "I left my man at a North Dakota junction, and I came out to the Big Apple here to face the dream's malfunction." According to biographer Sheila Weller, "Song For Sharon" also makes a coded reference to the March 1976 suicide of Jackson Browne's wife, fashion model Phyllis Major. Browne and Mitchell had a brief, "high-strung" affair in 1972; on at least one occasion, Browne allegedly physically abused Mitchell. After their relationship dissolved, Browne quickly married Major. Although Major had died from a barbiturate overdose, Mitchell sang "A woman I knew just drowned herself", and questioned if her suicide was a means of "punishing somebody". "Black Crow"'s lyrics deal with the practical difficulty for Mitchell of traveling from her second home on British Columbia's Sunshine Coast. "Blue Motel Room" was written at the DeSoto Beach Motel in Savannah, Georgia. The song was inspired by the first breakup of the on-again-off-again relationship between Mitchell and Guerin. The lyrics express Mitchell's hopes of rekindling their relationship, and she tells her love interest to rebuff any other suitors: "Tell those girls that you've got German Measles, honey tell 'em you've got germs." "Refuge of the Roads" was written about a three-day visit that Mitchell had made to the controversial Buddhist meditation master Chögyam Trungpa