The Beatles - Taxman lyrics
This site covers the original British Beatles Albums plus analyses of the lyrics of non-album tracks.
Information on how the Beatles wrote the lyrics to the songs on the Revolver album can be navigated from below.
Find out how the lyrics to the Beatles song Taxman from the album Revolver were written.
Taxman was written as a protest by George Harrison at the taxes that he had to pay. Because the Beatles were earning a substantial amount of money they were super-taxed and 96% of what they earned went straight to the taxman.
John Lennon has openly said that he also played a role in the writing of the taxman lyrics, and was upset at George that he didn’t give him credit for it in his autobiography I Me Mine. John is thought to have added the background references to the main players in Parliament at time, Edward Heath and Harold Wilson. These were the first two living people to ever have been mentioned in a Beatles song by name. They later went on to be nominated for MBE’s by the socialist Harold Wilson when he became prime Minister of Great Britain in 1964; he saw the Beatles as classless, and representative of the way that he wanted to represent Great Britain .
George Harrison takes the role of lead singer and lead guitarist on his own song, with Paul and John doing the backing vocals.