Taxman

Infobox Song
Name = Taxman


Artist = The Beatles
Album = Revolver
Released = 5 August 1966
track_no = 1
Recorded = Abbey Road Studios 20–21 April 1966
Genre = Pop Rock
Length = 2:39
Writer = George Harrison
Label = Parlophone
Producer = George Martin
Misc = Extra musicsample |filename=Beatles taxman.ogg |title=Taxman |format=Ogg |Type=songExtra tracklisting
Album = Revolver
Type = studio
Tracks = ;Side one
# "Taxman"
# "Eleanor Rigby"
# "I'm Only Sleeping"
# "Love You To"
# "Here, There and Everywhere"
# "Yellow Submarine"
# "She Said She Said";Side two
# "Good Day Sunshine"
# "And Your Bird Can Sing"
# "For No One"
# "Doctor Robert"
# "I Want to Tell You"
# "Got to Get You Into My Life"
# "Tomorrow Never Knows":"Tax man" redirects here. For the profession, see tax collector."Taxman" is a song by The Beatles, opening the "Revolver" album, based on a common personification of tax collection agencies such as the HM Customs and Excise, the Inland Revenue or the Internal Revenue Service. The song's writer, George Harrison, performs the role of a taxman on the song in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

Taxation leads to inspiration

Harrison was inspired to write "Taxman" when he discovered how much he was earning after accounting for taxes. As Harrison said, "'Taxman' was when I first realised that even though we had started earning money, we were actually giving most of it away in taxes. It was and still is typical." [cite book |first=George |last=Harrison|title=I Me Mine |year=1980 |pages=94 |publisher=Phoenix |location=London |isbn=0753817349] The reason for this was that due to how much The Beatles were earning, they were in the top tax bracket in the United Kingdom. In a 1984 interview with "Playboy" magazine, fellow Beatle Paul McCartney agreed with Harrison's depiction of the circumstances surrounding the writing of "Taxman": "George wrote that and I played guitar on it. He wrote it in anger at finding out what the taxman did. He had never known before then what he'll do with your money."

Asked for help

Harrison got some assistance in the lyrics from fellow Beatle John Lennon, who wrote a few one-liners on the song for him. In 1980, Lennon recalled in an interview with "Playboy" magazine, "I remember the day he [Harrison] called to ask for help on 'Taxman', one of his first songs. I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along because that's what he asked for. He came to me because he couldn't go to Paul [McCartney] . Paul wouldn't have helped him at that period. I didn't want to do it. I just sort of bit my tongue and said OK. It had been John and Paul for so long, he'd been left out because he hadn't been a songwriter up until then."

One quirk in the lyrics was Lennon's throwing in the names of the then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Harold Wilson (who had nominated all four of the Beatles as Members of the Order of the British Empire just the previous year) and Edward Heath (a future Prime Minister). Harrison pulled no punches in his bipartisan bashing – Wilson and Heath were the leaders of the British Labour Party and British Conservative Party respectively. Although, in Take 11 on Anthology 2, Wilson and Heath are replaced by two triplets of "Anybody got a bit of money?" The garage rock group The Music Machine's cover version of Taxman replaced Wilson and Heath with President Lyndon Johnson and then-U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk respectively.

In 1987, Harrison stated that he had been pleased McCartney agreed to play the guitar on "Taxman". In reference to McCartney's famous guitar solo, Harrison said, "I was pleased to have Paul play that bit on 'Taxman'. If you notice, he did like a little Indian bit on it for me." [cite magazine |title=Guitar |month= November | year= 1987 |isbn=]

The release, and after

The song was eventually released on "Revolver"; although Lennon and McCartney had always been the more prolific songwriters, they made allowance for a few Harrison songs on each album The Beatles released, in much the same way they would attempt to ensure at least one album track always featured drummer Ringo Starr's singing. Because it was the first track, a fake count-in was added at the beginning. A heavily distorted voice counts along with George Harrison; if one listens closely, McCartney can be heard shouting the actual count-in underneath the distorted one (In the stereo version, McCartney's count-in is in the left speaker). There are minor differences in the stereo and mono versions, particularly the entry points for the cowbell and tambourine.

On the song, Harrison sings as if he is the taxman, who is depicted as a malicious man looking for ways to rob people of their money, with lines like "If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat". The taxman tells the listener to appreciate that he is not left empty-handed: "Should five percent appear too small / Be thankful I don't take it all" and "one for you, nineteen for me" (referring to the 95% top tax rate at the time in the UK)^{citation needed}. He even goes as far as advising those who die to "declare the pennies on your eyes." The song closes with the taxman declaring that the listeners are enslaved by him: "And you're working for no one but me."

"Taxman" featured in Harrison's concert repertoire even after The Beatles had dissolved; on his tour of Japan in 1991 with Eric Clapton, "Taxman" was on the set list. "It's a song that goes regardless if it's the sixties, seventies, eighties or nineties," Harrison declared. "There's always a taxman." Harrison added more lyrics on that tour, such as "If you're overweight, I'll tax your fat."

In the U.S., radio disc jockeys and TV news reporters annually feature the song in the days leading up to April 15 (or one to three days after the 15th due to weekends and holidays), the date by which U.S. income tax returns must be filed. Some post offices have even been known to sardonically play the song on in-house audio systems for the long lines of bemused last-minute tax filers. In 2002, tax preparation service H&R Block used a slower-paced cover version of the song in television commercials.

Credits

*John Lennon – tambourine, harmony vocal
*Paul McCartney – lead guitar, bass, harmony vocal
*George Harrison – double-tracked lead vocal, rhythm guitar
*Ringo Starr – drums, maracas, cowbell

Harrison set the record straight in his 1977 Crawdaddy interview: "Paul played lead guitar on 'Taxman,' and he played guitar-- a good part-- on "Drive My Car".cite web |url=http://www.geocities.com/~beatleboy1/db1977.0200.beatles.html |publisher=The Beatles Interview Database |title= George Harrison Interview: Crawdaddy Magazine, February 1977 |accessdate=2007-09-18]

Other versions

The song has also been played and recorded by Junior Parker, Black Oak Arkansas, Bill Wyman, The (Bonniwell) Music Machine, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Nickel Creek, Les Fradkin, Garrison Starr, Rockwell and Mutual Admiration Society.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played the song in tribute to Harrison at 2002's Concert For George.

In the show Love, the guitar solo was sampled in the piece Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing, being primarily in the key of D major, like the rest of the song.

Cultural references

"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of this song in late 1981 called "Pac-Man", during the height of the game's popularity. The song has not yet seen a major release, but can be found on the compilation "Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes No. 4".

The Beatallica recorded a parody called "Sandman", which also was a parody of one of the most popular Metallica songs "Enter Sandman".

British indie band the Stone Roses' song "I Am The Resurrection" was inspired by the song's bassline; guitarist John Squire said that bassist Mani used to play it backwards and Squire would improvise over the top. This was a "joke" song they played in rehearsals, then they realised that it was strong enough to flesh out into a full song. Similarly, "Seagull", a song by another British shoegazer band, Ride, is also based on a bass riff very similar to the bass line in "Taxman".

The songs "To Be Someone" and "Start!" by British Mod revival band The Jam have similar basslines to the intro of "Taxman".

The British band Mansun has a song called "Taxloss". It's clearly inspired by "Taxman", with similar subject matter and backing vocals.

The first line of The Kinks' song "Sunny Afternoon", which came out a month before Revolver, speaks of the taxman.

Stevie Ray Vaughan's cover of the song appears on his greatest hits album.

Notes

References

*cite web |first=David |last=Fricke |url=http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/5940010/georgeharrison?pageid=rs.ArtistArticles&pageregion=mainRegion |title=George's Greatest Moments |publisher=Rolling Stone |date=2001-12-05
*cite book |first=John |last=Robb |title=The Stone Roses and the Resurrection of British Pop
*cite book |first=Martin C |last=Strong |title=The Essential Rock Discography |pages=548

External links

* [http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/DATABASES/AWP/t.html Alan W. Pollack's Notes on "Taxman"]