
I bought John Lennon: For the Record by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld when it first came out in 1984. The authors had previously written Apple to the Core: The Unmaking of the Beatles and this book, comprising the authors’ interview with John in New York in 1971, remained unpublished until now. In fact, the authors stated that in their quest to have this interview, John insisted that they do their background research (for what later became Apple to the Core) and then report back to him. They ended up not really needing any of the interview for that book at all, so it sat unpublished for thirteen years.
The cover was used previously when it accompanied the first of a two-part series on John in Penthouse magazine in July 1983:

yet those July and August 1983 magazine articles were written by John Green of Dakota Days notoriety. By coincidence, the editorial notes inside the book stated that “A portion of this book appeared in Penthouse, September 1984 issue” so for a while I was really thrown with the dates, as I know I picked up the July 1983 issue of Penthouse while on vacation in New York City. For over thirty years, based upon this identical illustration of John, I had been conflating the 1983 Penthouse articles with the 1984 publication of this paperback, mistakenly believing that the paperback was a collection of the two-part Penthouse series. I soon realized that this book comprised an interview I had never read before, and I raced through it.
Both authors stated at the beginning that John often contradicted himself in his answers. That is not news to me; I have encountered the conflicted Lennon often in his interviews. It made for a confusing read at times, as I always had to turn back several pages to reread John’s original response to make sure I had read it correctly. His longest answers pertained to the Beatles’ Hamburg days, where the pages went on without interruption. He could remember much more from those days versus the hectic days of Beatlemania. He even had trouble remembering what went on merely four years previously, in 1967.
The book didn’t get off to a good start, however. The authors made an error in the very first sentence on page one, stating that “John Lennon first met Yoko Ono at a London art gallery in 1967.” Wrong. They first met in 1966. The authors spent what I considered an exceptional amount of time asking John and Yoko about Linda McCartney, both before and after she married Paul. They both stated that they liked her, and that Yoko and Linda got along.
When asked about touring again, John joked:
“You know what I was thinking–I know I’ve told you this before–when Paul’s going out on the road, I’d like to be playing in the same town for free next door! And he’s charging about a million to see him. That would be funny. And of course he’s going to think that I’m going out on the road because he’s said he’s going out on the road. but it’d be a natural thing after Bangladesh.”
John destroyed one myth about his LSD-influenced song “Tomorrow Never Knows”:
“I read that George Martin was saying that John was into The Book of the Dead. I’d never seen it in me life. I just saw Leary’s psychedelic handout–it was very nice in them days.”
John was particularly snide in his remarks about George Harrison, treating him as I imagine when they first met when George was still a young teen and John was the teddyboy hotshot. He seemed resentful of George’s atmospheric post-Beatle success.
I do not recall reading these quotes elsewhere, unlike some Lennon interviews which journalists seem to quote from liberally, so it would be a new experience for any fans to hear what John thought of the Hamburg scene and his fellow Beatles in 1971.