After five years of artistic silence, he had recorded again, he enjoyed fatherhood and believed that “life begins at 40”.
“He was so alive, and he felt that he had something important to say about raising his baby and marriage. That’s the story he would want told, I think,” says a writer who interviewed the artist.
The separation of The Beatles, which Paul McCartney made public on April 10, 1970, was not free for those who since then began to be the former members of the band that changed the history of pop, and for some even that of the world. It was precisely to get away from the shock that that decision had caused, that Yoko Ono proposed to John Lennon to move to New York. And there they were, on August 31, 1971.
They first lived at the St. Regis Hotel, on 5th Avenue, east of 55th Street; After a month and a half, they moved to 105 Bank Street, Greenwich Village, and in May 1973, they settled permanently in the Dakota Building, located at number 1, 72nd Street. it would give security they had lost in their previous residence.
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From there, John and Yoko responded with diplomacy to the insistent requests for interviews the Beatle received, around which different hypotheses were woven after several years of silence. With the Rock and Roll album as the last record reference, the presence of the musician was unknown. No news of new songs or LPs, no media provocation, and no wild ideas to criticize for.
They also posted on May 27, 1979, the text A love letter from John and Yoko to those who ask us what, when, and why. There, after synthesis of what they had done during the last three years, they warned: “If you think of us the next time, remember that our silence is a silence of love and not of indifference. Remember that we are writing in heaven, instead of on paper. That is our song. Raise your eyes and look at the sky. That is our message ”.
The other message would arrive a year later, from Bermuda, where the Beatle had arrived aboard the sailboat Megan Jaye, something damaged by a storm that delayed his arrival in the island’s capital, where he met his son Sean. Lennon’s desire was awakened by his adventure at sea. “After five years of nothing. Without trying, with nothing in sight, without inspiration, no thoughts or anything, suddenly, voom voom voom … “
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The Beatle bought a couple of tape recorders, and while Sean slept, night after night he composed. In a bar he listened to Rock Lobster, from the B-52s and thought that yes, the audience was ready for Yoko, he took up some sketches that he had rehearsed at the Dakota and, when he returned to Manhattan, his wife had prepared everything to start record.
On August 4, 1980, Double Fantasy began to come true. The Hit Factory Studio was much more of a spa than a rock club. “Instead of cocaine and brandy, the band was served tea and sushi; Instead of casual sex between the music stands and instruments, the musicians could request a shiatsu massage; and a small portrait of Sean on the console reminded John that it was time to finish work that allowed him to arrive in time to kiss his son good night.
On October 9, John celebrated his four decades of life with Sean, who was turning 5, watching how five planes soared through the New York skywriting, nine times, the legend “Happy Birthday John and Sean Love Yoko”, while a group of Followers unsuccessfully waited for him to go out to receive the cards and gifts that had been brought to him.
Neither skinned, nor with his nose shattered from snorting cocaine so much, nor with his body made a mop, as was mentioned; there was the not so young John, a little thinner but in perfect condition. And next to him, inseparable, a Yoko who was no longer the most hated in the world. The couple had become family, and the rock and roll life was conjugated more in the past than in a much calmer present. Even with the industry revolutionized, for the return of the most rebellious of the fab four to the road.
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And the return had been full. To such an extent that eight songs were left out of the Double Fantasy sessions that made Lennon give up going back to Bermuda for a new vacation and, instead, start working on a new album: Milk & Honey. Meanwhile, he fantasized about producing a solo work by Yoko, which he had hinted at as Yoko Only. By the way, he had promised Ringo that he would participate in his next album. Complete agenda.
The 14-track album, which was released that November, begins with the thematically clever “(Just Like) Starting Over” and arguably approaches its melodramatic climax with “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy),” a track penned for Sean.
“In a way, we’re involved in a kind of experiment,” Lennon told The New York Times in an article published Nov. 9, 1980. “Could the family be the inspiration for art, instead of drinking or drugs or whatever? I’m interested in finding that out.”
Less than a month later, John was killed.