On This Day: “(Just Like) Starting Over” Becomes John Lennon’s First Posthumous No. 1

On June 11, 1980, John Lennon set sail to Bermuda n the 43-foot yacht from Newport, Rhode Island with wife Yoko Ono and son Sean. While on vaction in Bermuda , John Lennon wrote around 25 songs, including “Woman,” and “Watching the Wheels.” He even found the name of his next album after touring the Botanical Gardens in Paget, a freesia flower called Double Fantasy, which he started recording weeks after returning to New York City at the end of July.

Another song Lennon penned on the trip was “Starting Over,” a song centering around his marital issues with Ono, their separation, and reconnection—Our life together is so precious together / We have grown, we have grown / Although our love is still special. Shortly after writing the song, Lennon added “(Just Like)” to the beginning of the title so it wouldn’t appear too close to Dolly Parton‘s hit that year, “Starting Over Again.”

The opening track on Lennon’s seventh and final solo album Double Fantasy, which marked return to recording after a break for several years to raise his son Sean, “(Just Like) Starting Over” was recorded on August 9, 1980, at The Hit Factory in New York City with guitarist Earl Slick, bassist Tony Levin, and drummer Andy Newmark and released as a single on October 23, just two weeks before the album release.

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[RELATED: The Love and Meaning Behind John Lennon’s “(Just Like) Starting Over”]

An “Elvis-Orbison” Song

Lennon referred to “(Just Like) Starting Over” as an “Elvis-Orbison” (Elvis Presley-Roy Orbison) because of the vocal arrangements.

“All through the taping of ‘Starting Over,’ I was calling what I was doing ‘Elvis Orbison,” said Lennon during one of his final interviews, conducted with Rolling Stone just three days before his death. “It’s like Dylan doing Nashville Skyline,’ except I don’t have any Nashville, being from Liverpool. So I go back to the records I know—Elvis and Roy Orbison and Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis.”

After its release, “(Just Like) Starting Over” went to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Shortly after Lennon’s death on December 8, 1980, the song shot to the top in the U.S. and the UK on December 20, making it his first posthumous No. 1 hit.

“Starting Over” in Music

Though the song was primarily about Lennon and Ono’s reunion, and the restart of their relationship, it also reflected the reason why he returned to music after years away.

“I came back from where I know best, as unpretentious as possible, and with no experimentation because I was happy to be doing it as I did it before,” said Lennon.

He continued, “We’re born-again rockers, and we’re starting over.”

“Imagine” in 1981

In 1981, “Imagine” reemerged on the charts and also went to No. 1 where it remained for four weeks. That year, Double Fantasy track “Woman” also went to No. 2, and “Wathcing the Wheels peaked at No. 10. In ’81 Double Fantasy also won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

By 1984, Lennon’s posthumous album Milk And Honey, featuring songs pulled from his Double Fantasy sessions, produced another Top 10 with “Nobody Told Me” at No. 5.

Photo: John Lennon in Hyde Park, London, England, 1975. (Rowland Scherman/Getty Images)