Day After Day #103: Taxman

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Taxman (1966)

When you're doing one of these kinds of features and trying to figure out which Beatle song to do, it's no easy task because there are so many great ones. But given that it's April 15, "Taxman" was kind of a no-brainer. And it's a classic that's not quite as ubiquitous as many other Fab Four tracks.

By the time the Beatles recorded their seventh album Revolver, they had already begun evolving their sound. On the previous album, 1965's Rubber Soul, they moved away from the upbeat pop of their early albums and started exploring different instrumentation and more mature lyrics. They also started doing more drugs; John Lennon called Rubber Soul "the pot album," whereas Revolver was influenced by Lennon and George Harrison's extensive use of LSD.

The lead song on Revolver, however, was an angry rant written by Harrison about the progressive tax imposed in the U.K. by the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which had the Beatles forking over more than 90% of their earnings. He was also upset that their taxes were going to help fund the making of military weapons. Harrison got some lyrical help from Lennon, who added some one-liners to the song, while Paul McCartney ended up playing the Indian-inspired guitar solo.

"Let me tell you how it will be/There's one for you, nineteen for me/'Cause I'm the taxman/Yeah, I'm the taxman/Should five percent appear too small/Be thankful I don't take it all/'Cause I'm the taxman/Yeah, I'm the taxman."

The song is considered to be the Beatles' first political statement after making their name with poppy love songs. Harrison even namechecks Wilson and Edward Heath, leader of the Conservative Party. Harrison's guitar riff was inspired by R&B but McCartney's solo echoed the likes of Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix, who were known for playing speedy, spacey solos. 

"If you drive a car, I'll tax the street/If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat/If you get too cold, I'll tax the heat/If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet."

Revolver marked Harrison's emergency as a songwriting force in the band, which had been dominated by Lennon-McCartney compositions and covers to that point. In addition to "Taxman," he wrote "Love You To" and "I Want to Tell You."

"Taxman" ends with a brutal verse: "Now my advice for those who die/Declare the pennies on your eyes/Cause I'm the taxman/Yeah, I'm the taxman/And you're working for no one but me." McCartney's solo was then spliced onto the end of the song before the fadeout.

The song was not released as a single, but the album went #1 pretty much everywhere because it was 1966 and they were the Beatles. 

The group would lean into the acid and psychedelia with their next album, a little-heard concept album called Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

"Taxman' was ahead of its time in many ways, with some referring to it as a precursor to punk and heavy metal. But it also was a preview of musicians as "tax exiles,": a few years later, the U.K. saw the Rolling Stones moving to France, David Bowie and Marc Bolan to Switzerland, Cat Stevens to Brazil and Bad Company and Rod Stewart to California--all to escape the taxman. Nowadays, musicians set up bands as corporations in tax havens like the Netherlands, Luxembourg and the British Virgin islands.