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‘Taxman’: When The Beatles Protested The High Cost Of Success
Udiscovermusic ^ | December 6, 2022 | Charles Waring

Posted on 12/06/2022 11:48:36 AM PST by nickcarraway

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1 posted on 12/06/2022 11:48:36 AM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Did a 90% tax rate reduce poverty, improve education, or have any other beneficial effect?


2 posted on 12/06/2022 11:49:28 AM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

It was a 95% marginal tax rate, not 90%.

“There’s one for you nineteen for me,

‘Cause I’m the Taxman!

Yeah-ah, I’m the Taxman.

And you’re working for no one but me!”

From memory, any mistakes are mine, but that first is correct for sure.


3 posted on 12/06/2022 11:53:41 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Islam delenda est)
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To: nickcarraway

‘John Lennon revealed in 1968, later adding that “I threw in a few one-liners to help the song along because that’s what he asked for.”’

I believe he contributed the refrains about “If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat, if you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet”, etc.


4 posted on 12/06/2022 11:55:11 AM PST by Boogieman
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To: nickcarraway

Whatever McCarthy may have been trying to say didn’t work on any of their fans

All my Beatles-loving hippy/boomer relatives are reactionary, brain-dead leftists


5 posted on 12/06/2022 11:56:01 AM PST by PGR88
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To: PGR88

My Dad loves the Beatles, and is a rock-solid Conservative.


6 posted on 12/06/2022 12:00:08 PM PST by EvilCapitalist (81 million votes my ass.)
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To: nickcarraway

Around the same time, the Kinks waxed “Sunny Afternoon,” which is also a tax protest song.


7 posted on 12/06/2022 12:00:24 PM PST by Fiji Hill
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To: PGR88

FYI...

1. It’s McCartney...not “McCarthy”
2. Harrison wrote the song, not McCartney
3. McCartney did play the hot lead guitar
4. Your stereotyping “boomers” is indicative of a shallow, low IQ intellect not cognizant of basic music history


8 posted on 12/06/2022 12:00:55 PM PST by newfreep ("There is no race problem...just a problem race")
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To: nickcarraway

My guess is they would be incorporated in the Cayman Islands these days.


9 posted on 12/06/2022 12:07:13 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: FreedomPoster
“There’s one for you nineteen for me,

‘Cause I’m the Taxman!

Yeah-ah, I’m the Taxman.

And you’re working for no one but me!”

If 5% appears too small,

Be thankful I don't take it all...

10 posted on 12/06/2022 12:10:46 PM PST by Yo-Yo (Is the /Sarc tag really necessary? Pray for President Biden: Psalm 109:8)
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To: nickcarraway
The Beatles began paying the top tax rate, which meant that for every pound they earned, 90% of it – 19 shillings and six-pence to be exact – would be taken by the government.

Math failure. 90‰ would be 18 shillings per pound. The rate in the song would be 95%. And the 19/6 just quoted would be 97.5%.

11 posted on 12/06/2022 12:14:09 PM PST by KarlInOhio (Soon the January 6 protesters will be held (without trial or bail) longer than Jefferson Davis was.)
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To: nickcarraway

and it’s conceivable a punk band or two may have found inspiration in its attitude. (The Jam’s 1980 single “Start,” for one, owes a huge debt to “Taxman.”)

I remember hearing a Jam song that sounded a lot like Taxman.


12 posted on 12/06/2022 12:38:13 PM PST by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: nickcarraway

The author missed the main point and the song is analogous to today. You cannot name one thing our government rulers aren’t already taxing. Go ahead and try naming ONE thing they aren’t taxing right now.


13 posted on 12/06/2022 12:38:32 PM PST by subterfuge (I'm a pure-blood!)
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To: Taxman

Ping!


14 posted on 12/06/2022 12:59:04 PM PST by Albion Wilde ("There is no good government at all & none possible."--Mark Twain)
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To: nickcarraway

Stevie Ray Vaughan did an excellent cover of this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raDcViumSEk


15 posted on 12/06/2022 1:27:26 PM PST by Coronal
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To: subterfuge

‘Go ahead and try naming ONE thing they aren’t taxing right now.’

one...? how about tens of thousands; illegal aliens...


16 posted on 12/06/2022 2:36:57 PM PST by IrishBrigade
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To: EvilCapitalist
My Dad loves the Beatles, and is a rock-solid Conservative.

Same here. I have been a conservative all my life; still enjoy The Beatles music and even saw them live in concert as a teenager in 1966. Most of us "Boomers" were not leftist hippies.

17 posted on 12/06/2022 2:38:19 PM PST by Inyo-Mono
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To: nickcarraway

Bookmark


18 posted on 12/06/2022 4:12:14 PM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how thery control you. )
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To: nickcarraway
The Beatles went on to establish a corporation, Apple Corps, in order to lower their taxes. Corporate tax rates were lower than individual tax rates so they incorporated to get the lower rates.

For all their admiration of communist ideals, the Beatles didn't like having their money confiscated any more than the rest of us.

19 posted on 12/06/2022 4:50:56 PM PST by GaryCrow
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To: GaryCrow

Sounds like when hard left Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio moved to Florida before he croaked to avoid state death tax.


20 posted on 12/06/2022 4:53:44 PM PST by nascarnation (Let's go Brandon!)
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