‘Borrowed Time’/’Your Hands’ was the second single to be released from ‘Milk and Honey’ on 09 Mar 1984.

“Oh yes, it all seemed so bloody easier then. You know, like what to wear very serious like, you know, am I gonna get the little pimples? Does she really love me? All the crap. But now I don’t bother about that shit no more, I know she loves me! All I gotta bother about is standing up!”

– John Lennon

Yoko: This song was all John. He wrote it for Sean. I remember when Sean was young, whenever John did anything with him like teaching him to swim, he’d always be so proud and say, ‘That’s one thing I’ve given him, he’ll remember that forever’.

John: Sean is my biggest pride. He’s special to us and he’s beautiful physically. He didn’t come out my belly, but my god, I made his bones.

I’ve attended to every meal and how he sleeps and the fact that he swims like a fish is because I took him to the Y [YM-YWHA community centre swim- ming pool on 92nd St.]. I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those.

He’s very musical. I noticed something in the hospital. When the black nurses came in they put on WBLS which is an R&B disco station. When the white nurses would come in, they put on the Country & Western station. When the black nurses fed the babies, they picked them up and held them on their hip and danced round the room, and the bottle.

When the white nurses came in, they’d just sit still and jam the bottle down his throat and not move. So I thought ‘Ah, I want him to have natural rhythm’. I noticed the different attitude. Not only was it warmer and more contact, there was constant movement. I did the same with Sean till he could walk. Whenever I fed him, I put the rock and roll on, or the R&B and I danced with him. He can dance like nothing on Earth. He’s perfect pitch in key. He’s into ‘Hound Dog’ now, because I said that in an interview, so he thinks it’s about hunting. And ‘Be Bop A Lula’ he knows backwards.

I’m an avid reader; mainly history, archeology and anthropology. In other cultures, children don’t leave the mother’s back until 2. I think most schools are prisons. A child’s thing is wide open and to narrow it down and make him compete in the classroom is a joke. I sent Sean to kindergarten. When I realized I was sending him there to get rid of him, I let him come home. If I don’t give him attention at five, then I’m gonna have to give him double doses of it in his teenage years. It’s owed.

He’s with adults a lot. He’s traveled a lot. He goes wherever we go. He gets plenty of child companionship, which everybody says, ‘Well doesn’t he need children?’ No, he’d sooner have his parents any day; as long as we’re around. He doesn’t have to be on my knee all the time. Like all children, he likes to know I am in the house. even if he’s out.

The way we think, he chose us as parents. The gift of that responsibility doesn’t end. It’s an ongoing process. It’s a tremendous gift and a tremendous responsibility. Responsibility was something I never wanted – of any description.

It took us a long time to have a baby. And I wanted to give five solid years to Sean. I hadn’t seen Julian, my first son, grow up at all. I’d come back from Australia and he’d be a different size; there’d be a twelve-year-old boy there, who I had no relationship with. Well, how much of a relationship can you have with an absentee father?

And he has to be able to see through the Beatle image and see through the image his mother will have given him subconsciously or consciously.

It’s hard for him to see or understand from his perspective because he’s seventeen now. He’s interested in girls and motorbikes. He’ll deal with it. He’s a clever boy, and as he gets older, we can communicate and he’ll understand it.

No matter what artistic gains I get, or how many gold records, if I can’t make a success out of my relationship with the people I supposedly love, then everything else is bullshit.

I’m getting a relationship now. I can talk about music and whatever he’s into and girlfriends and that kind of stuff. There’s an open line still going. Julian and I will have a relationship in the future. He belongs to me. And always will.

Sean was born on October the ninth, which I was, so we’re almost like twins. The funny thing is, if he doesn’t see me for a few days or if I’m really, really busy and just sort of get a glimpse of him, or if I’m feeling depressed without him even seeing me, he picks up on it, and he starts getting that way.

I can no longer afford to have the artistic depressions, which usually produced a miserable song but was something I could use. So if I start going really deep, wallowing in a depression so I enjoy it as best I can, he’ll start coming down with stuff, so I’m obligated to keep up. But sometimes I can’t because something will make me depressed, and there’s no way I can deal with it. And then sure as hell, he’ll get a cold or trap his finger in the door or something will happen. So now I have more reason to stay healthy and bright. I can no longer wallow in it and say, ‘Well, this is how artists are supposed to be, I suppose’. Write the blues, you know?

John: I was guilty all through the making of Double Fantasy. We had his picture pinned in the studio ‘cause 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.

Earl Slick (guitar): John and I played acoustic guitar on Beautiful Boy and Hughie [McCracken] played electric. I played John’s black Yamaha acoustic guitar with a dragon on it.

George Small (keyboards): John played a piano part for me and I harmonized his original line, which had an Asian flair. Listening to the album recently, that song hit me the strongest of anything I heard. It’s got that great line, ‘Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.’ I mean, who can ever forget that line?

Andy Newmark (drummer): It was clear John was really in love with Sean. I guess he missed out on raising his first son, Julian, because he was always on the road and the marriage split up, as well.

He couldn’t wait for Sean to show up at the Hit Factory after nursery school each day. John was always in an ‘up’ mood in the studio, but he would go to the next level of ‘upness’ and happiness when Sean would appear. He was always holding Sean in his lap or bouncing him on his knee asking, ‘Do you like this song?’ John had spent the previous couple of years being, as he called it, a house-husband.

John told me that he was very hands-on when it came to raising Sean. He was involved in all the day-to-day stuff, which is very time-consuming. It seems that he really was enjoying that parental role at this point in his life. I think men start to become very good fathers from forty onwards. At forty, one has more of an overview and can nurture a child in the ways that matter.

Paul McCartney: ‘Beautiful Boy’ – I think it’s a beautiful song. It’s very moving to me.

Yoko: I love all of John’s songs and I really appreciate the fact that John made this song for Sean.