What The Final 12 Months Of John Lennon's Life Were Like

The murder of John Lennon in December 1980 at the age of 40 sent shock waves around the world. His death cemented his legacy as a countercultural icon, with a worldwide following of fans who had grown up listening to his music over the previous two decades.

In recent years, the view of John Lennon's life has become increasingly mixed, with his difficult upbringing brought into the spotlight by the hit movie Nowhere Boy, while his behavior toward his wives and children has also come under scrutiny. Indeed, much of this discussion comes from multiple candid interviews that Lennon gave to various publications such as Playboy and Rolling Stone during the final year of his life, which represented his return to public life after a long hiatus, with, as he put it, "something to say."

Lennon's circumstances in 1980 are important in gaining a true perspective on the life of an artist who had a strained relationship with fame and who was a complicated character in general. 1980 is also a crucial year, as it gives an insight into the future of an artist who had emerged from a period of isolation and transformation with a new view of the world, the music industry, and his place in them both.

In his return to the limelight in fall of 1980, John Lennon explained that since the birth of Sean, he had taken up the role of "househusband," while also stating in the Playboy interview that: "It was more important to face myself and to face that reality than to continue a life of rock 'n' roll."

The 1970s had been a decade of contrasts for Lennon, the early years of which were characterized by the acrimony of the Beatles splitting and the hedonism of his 18-month-long "lost weekend," during which he and Yoko separated and Lennon joined the ranks of hellraisers Harry Nillson and Keith Moon as a habitual drinker and drug-taker. So Lennon's return in 1980 after five years of domestic normality represented the rebalancing of numerous aspects of his life and his re-emergence to the music industry on his own terms.

Lennon told Playboy: "You breathe in and you breathe out. We feel like doing it and we have something to say," suggesting that he and Yoko felt revitalized and ready to return to public life for the long term.

The Lennons lived in the suitably named Fairylands area of Bermuda, according to Go To Bermuda, southwest of St. George's Harbor, where their yacht had docked after their difficult journey.

One thing that Lennon's past half-decade had been missing was nightlife, and the songwriter's familiarity with contemporary music had certainly waned during his hiatus. Exploring the nightspots along Front Street in the City of Hamilton, Lennon claims that he stumbled across a young group dancing to music he had never heard before. The song in question was "Rock Lobster" by the B-52s, released in April 1978.

In his final interview with Rolling Stone, Lennon claimed that he had never heard the song before but said that it immediately made him think of Yoko's music. Ono was more familiar than her husband with the movements that had emerged in popular music, from punk to post-punk and new wave, in the late '70s, and the realization that things were changing apparently gave Lennon the inspiration he needed to begin writing music again. He started playing the guitar again the very next day.

His two-month residence in Bermuda starting in June 1980 has been described as instrumental in Lennon's overcoming of long-term writer's block and the re-emergence of both his creative muse and his interest in writing, recording, and releasing music. There are a number of theories for what exactly it was about the island that had such an effect on Lennon. Some, such as Gentleman's Journal, point to the island's similarities to Britain, noting that, having not visited his home country in nine years, this may have awoken something in Lennon to get his creative juices flowing once more.

As noted by OZY, Lennon later made a direct link between the 30 songs he wrote in the short time he was in Bermuda with the perilous journey there, and particularly with his six-hour manning of the vessel while his crew was out for the count. "I was so tuned in, or whatever, to the cosmos," Lennon later told Playboy, "and all of these songs came." Lennon composed his sketches of songs on an acoustic guitar and recorded the results himself, including material for what would eventually become his final single and album, as well as much more work that would eventually only be released posthumously on 1984's Milk and Honey.

The nature of Lennon's comeback was writ large in the title of his first single in five years. "(Just Like) Starting Over" is a sweet single that adequately reflects the unity of his relationship with Ono in the years preceding its release, with the opening bars especially evoking the theme of rebirth and the trepidation of returning to something — the music scene — which is no longer quite so familiar as it once was.

The song is, in fact, constructed from three fragments, says Beatles Bible, with the first section, originally titled "My Life," emerging in embryonic form in 1979 as a love song that John had penned for Yoko. Two unfinished pieces, previously known as "Don't Be Crazy" and "The Worst Is Over" make up the remaining parts, while the song only came together in its final form once Lennon and Ono had begun working in the studio in New York.

On release, the single peaked in the Top 10 in both the UK and the US singles charts, marking an end to Lennon's self-imposed hiatus and signaling that he still had a receptive — though tentative — following as an artist. The single was to become his biggest solo hit in the US after his death.

From the breakup of the Beatles in 1970, John Lennon and Paul McCartney had had a tense and rocky relationship, beginning with the two taking shots at one another on records and in numerous early solo interviews. Lennon had taken issue with some of the lyrics on Paul and Linda McCartney's 1971 album Ram, which he interpreted as being about his relationship with Yoko Ono. McCartney would later confirm to Playboy that the song "Too Many People" was indeed about John and Yoko and that the latter's name was in the original lyrics before being edited out. On John's side, the vicious "How Do You Sleep?" from Imagine, released the same year as Ram, could hardly be about anyone else.

By the mid- to late '70s, however, the duo had begun to mend their friendship. According to Huffpost, the pair had reunited only a couple of times since — once in 1974 during the "Lost Weekend" and again in 1976, when they spent an evening together watching an episode of Saturday Night Live in which Lorne Michaels jokingly offered the Beatles $3,000 to appear on the show. The two joked about turning up at the studio.

Lennon and McCartney last spoke on John Lennon's 40th birthday, October 9, 1980, a phone call that McCartney later described as "happy." On the day of his death two months later, Lennon reportedly told journalist Dave Sholin that McCartney was "like a brother."

The horror of Lennon's murder — committed publicly, in front of his wife, by an obsessive fan who he 'd spoken to and signed a record for earlier the same day — requires no detailed explanation. The tragedy of his death at the age of 40 in light of what we know about his life immediately beforehand is, however, worth thinking about.

Biography describes how Lennon was publicly active, promoting a new album, meeting fans, and returning to the studio to work on more music when his life was taken from him. Having taken steps to address aspects of his life, his past behaviors, and his turn away from music in favor of family, the truth is that perhaps, as his many interviews in 1980 show, Lennon's life was — possibly for the first time — perfectly balanced, and he was approaching music and fame on his own terms. And the peaceful space that he had created for himself and his family in his hiatus allowed him to think about his future, a far cry from the Beatlemania days when life was moving fast at the behest of managers and executives. As he said in his September 1980 Playboy interview: "God willing, there are another 40 years of productivity to go."