In Our Lifetime? is the sixteenth studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released January 15, 1981, on Motown label Tamla Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at Marvin's Room in Los Angeles, California, Seawest Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, and at Odyssey Studios in London, England, throughout 1979 and 1980 (and abruptly remixed in 1981 by Motown). The album cover was designed by Neil Breeden. Gaye's final album for Motown before leaving for Columbia Records, the album was the follow-up to the commercial failure of Here, My Dear, a double album which chronicled the singer's divorce from Anna Gordy. Entirely written, produced, arranged, and mixed by Gaye, In Our Lifetime? was a departure for Gaye from the disco stylings of his previous two studio efforts and was seen as one of the best albums of the singer's late-Motown period. Conception In 1979, Marvin Gaye found himself at a professional and personal low ebb. Two years without a hit since "Got to Give It Up", he had released the commercially unsuccessful Here, My Dear, which then alienated critics and fans alike for the musician's take on his personal life including his troubling marriage to Anna Gordy, which had ended in divorce a couple years before. Following that divorce, Gaye married his longtime girlfriend Janis in October 1977. Janis Gaye later filed for legal separation citing mental abuse throughout their marriage. Janis had been the inspiration behind Gaye's 1976 album, I Want You. That year, Gaye decided to reestablish his pop audience, first releasing a slightly autobiographical disco song he titled "Ego Tripping Out", in which he lyrically explained his larger-than-life ego and masked it with personal doubt ("turn the fear into energy/'cause the toot and the smoke won't fulfill the need"). Gaye debuted the song while appearing on Dinah Shore's Dinah & Friends, with the performance later being featured on the DVD, Marvin Gaye - The Real Thing: In Performance 1964-1981. The song was supposed to be the leading track off Gaye's next album, a disco-styled album he titled Love Man, with tracks he had recorded at his recording studio complex. However, the album was put on hold as Gaye, now facing a $4.5 million debt with the IRS, went out on a half-hearted world tour to alleviate his debts. Gaye's heart, however, wasn't in the tour, and midway through after a mildly receptive show in Japan and