Taxman

Spotify's official recording from Revolver (Remastered). Sign-in Spotify users get full playback; everyone else gets a 30-second preview. Open in Spotify →

"Taxman" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. Written by the group's lead guitarist, George Harrison, with some lyrical assistance from John Lennon, it protests against the higher level of progressive tax imposed in the United Kingdom by the Labour government of Harold Wilson, which saw the Beatles paying over 90 per cent of their earnings to the Treasury. The song was selected as the album's opening track and contributed to Harrison's emergence as a songwriter beside the dominant Lennon–McCartney partnership. [Wikipedia]

Taxman is a song by The Beatles, written by Harrison and led on vocal by George Harrison. George's barbed protest at 95% supertax; Paul plays the searing guitar solo. George Harrison's acerbic protest against the 95 percent supertax rates imposed on high earners, 'Taxman' opens Revolver with satirical bite. Harrison directed his complaint toward Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Conservative shadow leader Edward Heath, delivering the song's opening line with sardonic precision. Paul McCartney's piercing guitar solo, stepping into a rare instrumental role, cuts through the composition's rhythmic groove with the sharpness of a blade (Lewisohn 1988, p.75). Kozinn observes that 'Taxman' functions as a plain rocker with a sizzlingly virtuosic guitar solo—notably not performed by Harrison himself, but by McCartney, whose technical facility had visibly surpassed that of the guitarist credited on the album. (Kozinn 1995, p.144)

The session work falls within the band's Revolver / Studio Awakening (1966) period, recorded 21 Apr 1966 at EMI Studios, Abbey Road. George Martin produced; Geoff Emerick engineered. For session-by-session detail, see Mark Lewisohn's account on p.75 of The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (excerpt below). The song's recording spanned three sessions: initial rhythm track attempts on 20 April yielded four incomplete takes, prompting a fresh start on 21 April with eleven takes before vocals were introduced. A tape reduction on 22 April added overdubbed cowbell and the backing vocal refrain identifying Wilson and Heath. The final lead guitar solo, contrary to early takes, was assembled from a tape copy of the middle eight section, edited into place during the mono and stereo remix on 21 June (Lewisohn 1988, pp.75-78). Emerick recounts that he considered 'Taxman' George's strongest song on Revolver; George Martin's decision to place it first on the album was a deliberate choice to showcase Harrison's advancing songwriting prowess despite his often being overshadowed by Lennon-McCartney. (Emerick 2006, p.335) MacDonald notes the compressed, thuddy bass-driven guitar sound Harrison achieved on this track, influenced by the song's satirical commentary on high earner taxation that would become central to Revolver's opening. (MacDonald 1994, p.87)

In the canonical discography it appears on the LP Revolver. Documented alternate versions include Anthology 2 (1996), 2009 Stereo Remasters. Mono and stereo histories vary by era — see the dedicated section below. Taxman ranks 14 pages in Lewisohn's coverage, reflecting the song's recording complexity and compositional significance. George Harrison lead vocals appear in 28 canon songs, with 3 in the Revolver era—making this one of his rarest lead-vocal assignments across the entire catalog. As the album opener, Taxman announced a thematic shift from Rubber Soul's introspection to pointed social commentary and stylistic experimentation (Lewisohn 1988, pp.75-78). Daniels documents the recording spanning 21 April with additional sessions on 22 April and 16 May 1966, with a 4-track master tape mixed to mono on 21 June, released on the UK Parlophone PMC-7009 pressing. (Daniels 2024, p.149)

• In his book Psychedelia and Other Colours, Rob Chapman highlights "Taxman" as an example of the Beatles' widespread influence on rock music's developments during the 1960s.
• He says that Harrison's guitar riff "runs like an unbroken thread through the development of English psychedelia" and is also present "as a trace element in many a mod-pop mutation". Writing in Rolling Stone's Harrison commemorative book, in January 2002, Mikal Gilmore recognised his incorporat...
• Gilmore considered this quality to be "perhaps more originally creative" than the avant-garde styling that Lennon and McCartney took from Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luciano Berio, Edgar Varese and Igor Stravinsky and brought to the Beatles' work over the same period. Revolver has been recognised as...
• During the 1996 US presidential election, publicity for Republican candidate Bob Dole stated that he would be using a tape of "Taxman" in his campaign rallies.
• This was in response to his Democratic opponent, Bill Clinton, adopting a personal anecdote from his past as a student in England, detailing how he defended Starr in a Liverpool pub brawl, as part of his campaign rhetoric. In early 2002, according to musicologist Russell Reising, "one of the largest [tax] prepar...
• Quartz reporter Aamna Mohdin describes "Taxman" as "the mother of all tax protest songs" amid a wealth of creative works that convey "the misery of taxes". A 2019 article in Tax Journal stated that the Beatles' legacy endures in the "world of tax" through the song, which had b...

Extracted from the ‘In popular culture’ / ‘Legacy’ section of the corresponding Wikipedia article. Verify against the linked article before quoting.

Film, TV, and other screen works whose primary title matches this song. Some are direct cultural references (the 1965 Beatles film, the 2019 Danny Boyle feature). Many are coincidental title shares -- worth knowing about but not claiming as soundtrack appearances. Sorted by IMDB vote count.

• Taxman (1998, film) IMDB 5.6 · 594 votes [IMDB]
• Nothing to Declare (1999, film) IMDB 5.3 · 214 votes [IMDB]

Source: IMDB public dataset (title.basics.tsv + title.ratings.tsv) joined locally. Includes titles with sufficient vote counts to indicate cultural visibility.

Other recordings sharing era, vocalist, writer, key, studio, or producer with this one. Higher scores indicate stronger overlap on documented attributes.

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