The Story Behind The Song: How John Lennon created ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’
John Lennon has two sons. The first, Julian, was born in 1963 to John and his first wife, Cynthia Lennon, whom the musician married when she fell pregnant. His only other child is Sean Ono Lennon, born in 1975 to John and Yoko Ono. Arguably Lennon was unable to father Julian properly, having been caught up in the midst of Beatlemania, so when Sean was born, he wanted to give him the attention he deserved.
To show his love for Sean, Lennon wrote a song entitled ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’, which arrived on Lennon’s final solo album before he died, Double Fantasy, which was released in 1980. Throughout the recording process, Lennon had Sean on his mind. He was five years old by that time, and Lennon did not want to make the same mistakes he had with Julian.
Lennon said at the time: “I was guilty all through the making of Double Fantasy. We had his picture pinned in the studio because I didn’t want to lose contact with what I’d got. We had the picture up there all the time in between the speakers, so whenever you’re checking the stereo, he was looking at me all the time.”
Lennon had begun writing the song a year prior to its release and recorded a demo version with the beautiful lyrics, “Hold my hand before you cross the street/The traffic’s slow but you never know who you’re gonna meet.” Evidently, Lennon had wanted the song to always stay with Sean, which perhaps is another instance of the Beatles’ singer predicting his death, knowing that his music was going to be the only way for him to stay in the hearts and minds of his friends and family.
After recording another demo in 1980, toying with the length and lyrics of the song, Lennon recorded a final take just before the studio sessions for Double Fantasy began. Much of the album explores the newfound joy he had uncovered while living a simpler, more domesticated life with Yoko and Sean, and ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) is exemplary of that.
Of course, both Lennon and Yoko already had children, but there was a sense in them both that they wanted to try and have a ‘normal’ family now that the relentless touring and recording of the Beatles had slowed. “Both of us wanted to be a parent for the first time, is what it was. Even though both of us had children by previous incarnations, we’d both been so self-occupied,” Lennon said in 1980.
He added: “It was also wanting a child that was our child as opposed to a child – because we could have adopted one, you know. Some people want a child, which I admire, too – people who have that generalised love. But we wanted our child.” The Double Fantasy song shows the profound love that Lennon (and Yoko) had for their young son.
The song contains one of Lennon’s most memorable lyrics: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” and is fondly remembered by both Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono, who selected it on their respective Desert Island Discs appearances. McCartney had also said in 1982, two years after Lennon’s death, “I think it’s a beautiful song. It’s very moving to me.”
So be moved as McCartney had been by listening to ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’ below.