Uploaded October 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
From '' Collected Works 1969-70 ''
Label: Acme / Lion Productions – ACLN 1013CD
Format: CD, Album, Reissue, Remastered
Country: US
Released: 2009
Tracklist
01. Time Keeper
02. Venetian Glass
03. Space Shanty
04. Taxman
Written-By – George Harrison
05. (I'm In Love With) A Girl Like You
Written-By [Uncredited] – Eddie Brigati, Felix Cavaliere
06. Same Girl
07. Pattern People
Written-By – Jimmy Webb
08. Venetian Glass (Instrumental)
09. I've Got You Under My Skin (Instrumental)
Written-By – Cole Porter
10. (I'm In Love With) A Girl Like You (Mono)
Written-By [Uncredited] – Eddie Brigati, Felix Cavaliere
11. I've Got You Under My Skin
Written-By – Cole Porter
12. Taxman (Instrumental)
Written-By – George Harrison
Written-By – Infinity (tracks: 1 to 3, 6, 8)
Guitar, Vocals – Brian Gill, Stuart Calver
Drums, Vocals – Phil Chesterton
Organ, Vocals – John Da Costa
Bass Guitar, Vocals – Ian Baldwin
Recorded At – Essex Studios
Recorded At – Tangerine Studios
Artwork [Updated] – JT's House Of Design
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Acme
Copyright © – Acme
------------------------
"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.
It was the group's first topical song and the first political statement they had made in their music.
The Beatles began recording "Taxman" in April 1966, a month after Wilson's landslide win in the 1966 general election. Coinciding with the song's creation, Harrison learned that the band members' tax obligations were likely to lead to their bankruptcy, and he was outspoken in his opposition to the government using their income to help fund the manufacture of military weapons. Drawing on 1960s soul/R&B musical influences, the song portrays the taxman as relentless in his pursuit of revenue and name-checks Wilson and Edward Heath, the leader of the Conservative Party. The recording includes an Indian-influenced guitar solo performed by Paul McCartney.
"Taxman" was influential in the development of British psychedelia and mod-style pop, and has been recognised as a precursor to punk rock. The Jam borrowed heavily from the song for their 1980 hit single "Start!" When performing "Taxman" on tour in the early 1990s, Harrison adapted the lyrics to reference contemporaneous leaders, citing its enduring quality beyond the 1960s. The song's impact has extended to the tax industry and into political discourse on taxation.
Release
EMI's Parlophone label released Revolver on 5 August 1966, with "Taxman" sequenced as the opening track, before "Eleanor Rigby".
Other versions, tributes and parodies
The Beatles chose not to perform any of the songs from Revolver in concert, and Harrison first played "Taxman" live on his 1991 Japanese tour with Eric Clapton. He took to introducing it as "a very old song written in 1873".
In other comments at that time, he said its message was relevant "regardless if it's the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, [or] Nineties", since "There's always a taxman."
Harrison changed much of the lyric, updating the politicians to John Major, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin, making reference to VAT, and including a new bridge that ended with the lines "If you wipe your feet, I'll tax the mat / If you're overweight, I'll tax your fat."
"Taxman" was covered by the 1960s garage-psychedelic band the Music Machine in a version that music critic Richie Unterberger describes as "[sticking] pretty close to the original arrangement", while a recording by Junior Parker fully explored the song's soul traits.
Writing for Rough Guides, Chris Ingham includes a version by avant-garde cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm in his selection of "bizarre Beatles covers".
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played "Taxman" in tribute to Harrison at the Concert for George, held at London's Royal Albert Hall in November 2002
On the 2003 Songs from the Material World Harrison tribute album, former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman contributed a version of the song.
Cheap Trick's "Taxman, Mr Thief", from their 1977 eponymous debut album, is an homage to the Beatles' song, dealing in similar lyrical themes.
The Jam adapted the riff and rhythm from "Taxman" in their 1980 hit single "Start!"
"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of "Taxman" in late 1981, during the height of the Pac-Man game's popularity. Titled "Pac-Man", it was first released on the 2017 compilation Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic.
~more info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxman
#psychedelicrock
#hardrock
From '' Collected Works 1969-70 ''
Label: Acme / Lion Productions – ACLN 1013CD
Format: CD, Album, Reissue, Remastered
Country: US
Released: 2009
Tracklist
01. Time Keeper
02. Venetian Glass
03. Space Shanty
04. Taxman
Written-By – George Harrison
05. (I'm In Love With) A Girl Like You
Written-By [Uncredited] – Eddie Brigati, Felix Cavaliere
06. Same Girl
07. Pattern People
Written-By – Jimmy Webb
08. Venetian Glass (Instrumental)
09. I've Got You Under My Skin (Instrumental)
Written-By – Cole Porter
10. (I'm In Love With) A Girl Like You (Mono)
Written-By [Uncredited] – Eddie Brigati, Felix Cavaliere
11. I've Got You Under My Skin
Written-By – Cole Porter
12. Taxman (Instrumental)
Written-By – George Harrison
Written-By – Infinity (tracks: 1 to 3, 6, 8)
Guitar, Vocals – Brian Gill, Stuart Calver
Drums, Vocals – Phil Chesterton
Organ, Vocals – John Da Costa
Bass Guitar, Vocals – Ian Baldwin
Recorded At – Essex Studios
Recorded At – Tangerine Studios
Artwork [Updated] – JT's House Of Design
Phonographic Copyright ℗ – Acme
Copyright © – Acme
------------------------
"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.
It was the group's first topical song and the first political statement they had made in their music.
The Beatles began recording "Taxman" in April 1966, a month after Wilson's landslide win in the 1966 general election. Coinciding with the song's creation, Harrison learned that the band members' tax obligations were likely to lead to their bankruptcy, and he was outspoken in his opposition to the government using their income to help fund the manufacture of military weapons. Drawing on 1960s soul/R&B musical influences, the song portrays the taxman as relentless in his pursuit of revenue and name-checks Wilson and Edward Heath, the leader of the Conservative Party. The recording includes an Indian-influenced guitar solo performed by Paul McCartney.
"Taxman" was influential in the development of British psychedelia and mod-style pop, and has been recognised as a precursor to punk rock. The Jam borrowed heavily from the song for their 1980 hit single "Start!" When performing "Taxman" on tour in the early 1990s, Harrison adapted the lyrics to reference contemporaneous leaders, citing its enduring quality beyond the 1960s. The song's impact has extended to the tax industry and into political discourse on taxation.
Release
EMI's Parlophone label released Revolver on 5 August 1966, with "Taxman" sequenced as the opening track, before "Eleanor Rigby".
Other versions, tributes and parodies
The Beatles chose not to perform any of the songs from Revolver in concert, and Harrison first played "Taxman" live on his 1991 Japanese tour with Eric Clapton. He took to introducing it as "a very old song written in 1873".
In other comments at that time, he said its message was relevant "regardless if it's the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, [or] Nineties", since "There's always a taxman."
Harrison changed much of the lyric, updating the politicians to John Major, George Bush and Boris Yeltsin, making reference to VAT, and including a new bridge that ended with the lines "If you wipe your feet, I'll tax the mat / If you're overweight, I'll tax your fat."
"Taxman" was covered by the 1960s garage-psychedelic band the Music Machine in a version that music critic Richie Unterberger describes as "[sticking] pretty close to the original arrangement", while a recording by Junior Parker fully explored the song's soul traits.
Writing for Rough Guides, Chris Ingham includes a version by avant-garde cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm in his selection of "bizarre Beatles covers".
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played "Taxman" in tribute to Harrison at the Concert for George, held at London's Royal Albert Hall in November 2002
On the 2003 Songs from the Material World Harrison tribute album, former Rolling Stone Bill Wyman contributed a version of the song.
Cheap Trick's "Taxman, Mr Thief", from their 1977 eponymous debut album, is an homage to the Beatles' song, dealing in similar lyrical themes.
The Jam adapted the riff and rhythm from "Taxman" in their 1980 hit single "Start!"
"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a parody of "Taxman" in late 1981, during the height of the Pac-Man game's popularity. Titled "Pac-Man", it was first released on the 2017 compilation Squeeze Box: The Complete Works of "Weird Al" Yankovic.
~more info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxman
#psychedelicrock
#hardrock
