Episode 5: Starting Over
After five years largely away from public musical life, John Lennon begins to look towards a new future. This episode explores his life as a husband and father during his withdrawal from the music business, his continuing private creativity, and the unexpected return of his songwriting during a voyage to Bermuda in 1980.
We follow the development of Double Fantasy, the album that brought Lennon back into the public eye, and explore songs including Beautiful Boy, Woman and (Just Like) Starting Over. Together, they offer a portrait of a man looking back at his earlier life while attempting to establish a different relationship with music, family and fame.
The episode also examines the continuing public fascination with the Beatles and the possibility of a reunion, before turning to Lennon’s final day on 8 December 1980. His photography session with Annie Leibovitz, his last major radio interview, his return to the Dakota and the events surrounding his murder are presented as the end of a life that still seemed to be opening into a new chapter.
Rather than allowing the circumstances of his death to define the whole story, the episode returns to the man Lennon appeared to be becoming: a musician with new ideas, a father committed to raising his young son, and a person who believed he had many more years ahead of him.
The series concludes by reflecting on the many identities Lennon inhabited throughout his life, and on the future that was taken from him at the age of forty.
The episode draws on Lennon’s interviews from his final period, contemporary reporting, documentation of the recording and release of Double Fantasy, and retrospective accounts of his years away from public musical life.
John’s own comments about his withdrawal from the music business are treated as testimony about how he understood that period, rather than as proof that he stopped creating music altogether. The script acknowledges that he continued writing and recording privately, even when he was not releasing records or appearing regularly in public.
The treatment of fatherhood recognises the difference between Lennon’s relationship with Sean and his earlier, more complicated relationship with Julian. It avoids presenting his later domestic life as a complete resolution of his earlier difficulties.
The Beatles reunion question is treated as a complicated historical matter rather than a simple refusal by Lennon to return. The episode also avoids sensationalising the murder or allowing the killer to become the central character in Lennon’s final hours.
The account of 8 December 1980 focuses on contemporary evidence, including the Leibovitz photography session and Lennon’s final radio interview, to emphasise that Lennon was looking towards future music and family life. The narrative ends with that future-facing perspective, rather than treating the violence of his death as the meaning of his life.
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