Most of people avoid thinking about our mortality as much as possible. Most days, it doesn’t even cross our minds, as we fill our time strolling through supermarket aisles and attending Zoom calls, taking the dog out for a walk and organising dinners with friends, each activity distracting us from the inevitable. But sometimes, against all attempts to cast it out, the thought finds a way in. For John Lennon, he expelled those thoughts in the studio.
By 1980, Lennon had achieved more than most musicians even dream of. He spent the 1960s penning all-time greats for The Beatles alongside his writing partner Paul McCartney, contributing some of the band’s most enduring tracks, from ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ to ‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’. Along the way, they became the most influential band in music history.
When the Beatles broke up in 1970, struggling with the death of Brian Epstein and their increasing internal disagreements, each member embarked upon a solo career. Lennon began collaborating even more closely with his creative and romantic partner, Yoko Ono, starting up the Plastic Ono Band. He continued to pen classics like ‘Imagine’ and ‘Beautiful Boy’, undeterred by the demise of the Beatles.
But by 1980, Lennon had begun to feel like his time was up. He once explained believing that he was “living on borrowed time, what we’re all doing, even though most of us don’t like to face it.” In response to these uncomfortable feelings, Lennon resolved to go to the studio to deal with them through song. The result was the aptly titled ‘Borrowed Time’, which he penned during a trip to Bermuda.
Lennon paired his thoughts on death with an unexpectedly upbeat soundtrack, adorning his words with reggae-inspired twangs. Lyrically, the song focused on the discomfort of ageing and confronting your own mortality, reflecting on the simplicity and confusion of youth. “When I was younger, full of ideas and broken dreams, my friend,” Lennon remembered, “When I was younger, everything was simple but not so clear.”
The song juxtaposed this with the clarity that comes with older age but also the discomfort of knowing what comes next. “Does she really love me? All that crap,” Lennon quips towards the end of the song, “But now, I don’t bother about that shit no more, I know she loves me.” Still, despite the more carefree attitude that he has gained with age, he still laments living on “borrowed time” each time the chorus comes back around.
The track made its way onto Lennon and Yoko Ono’s final album, 1984’s Milk and Honey, which was released several years after the Beatle died. Unbeknownst to Lennon at the time, he was living on borrowed time when he penned the track of the same name. Not long after it was written, in the winter months of the same year, the songwriter was shot and killed.
This provided the track with a new meaning for fans and for those close to Lennon. “Now when we think about the title,” Ono once reflected during a conversation with Uncut, “It’s just kind of chilling in a way, that he was very aware that it was a borrowed time.” The songwriter had no way of knowing that his words would become real within months of them being written.
