‘Taxman’: When The Beatles Protested The High Cost Of Success

Udiscovermusic ^ | December 6, 2022 | Charles Waring

[nickcarraway]

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

[FreedomPoster]

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.

[Boogieman]

‘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.

[PGR88]

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

[EvilCapitalist]

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

[Fiji Hill]

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

[newfreep]

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

[Vermont Lt]

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

[Yo-Yo]

“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...

[KarlInOhio]

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%.

[ifinnegan]

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.

[subterfuge]

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.

[Albion Wilde]

Ping!

[Coronal]

Stevie Ray Vaughan did an excellent cover of this.

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

[IrishBrigade]

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

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

[Inyo-Mono]

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.

[aquila48]

Bookmark

[GaryCrow]

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.

[nascarnation]

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