{"id":6609,"date":"2016-07-05T17:11:21","date_gmt":"2016-07-05T22:11:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?p=6609"},"modified":"2016-07-05T17:11:21","modified_gmt":"2016-07-05T22:11:21","slug":"cause-they-were-taxed-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/cause-they-were-taxed-man\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Cause They Were Taxed, Man…"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the first of 14 blogs discussing the songs on the Revolver LP. We invite you to add to this introductory information by posting your own facts about the song. We\u2019d also love to hear from you concerning your opinions about the lyrics, music, and background of \u201cTaxman.\u201d Comment away!<\/em><\/p>\n

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1,2,3,4\u2026and there it was: the familiar count-in. The comforting sound that had begun the Please Please Me<\/em> LP. Except that it wasn\u2019t\u2026familiar, that is. Something was amiss.<\/p>\n

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This count-in was slightly disconnected, an appendage to the song, not an organic part of it. The timing was somewhat different; the transition, rough. And knowing that The Beatles did nothing unintentionally, (even when they sang lyrics erroneously, they often left the odd overlaps in the song on purpose, creating a human, \u201cwe\u2019re infallible, too\u201d atmosphere), we knew immediately that this disjointed intro held significance. It housed meaning.<\/p>\n

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The old, accustomed \u201ccount in\u201d to the jangling rock\u2019n\u2019roll songs that had set \u201cthe teacups to rattling\u201d (1) was gone. This count-in device heralded something new, something technically different, something seemingly same but dramatically innovative. All the customary pieces were there, but they\u2019d been stitched together differently. Rearranged. And from the initial count-in, we knew that.<\/p>\n

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And that voice! It was\u2026George! George who had always been permitted one (or lavishly, two) songs per LP. George, who had never opened a Beatles album before. George, and not Leader John, whose gravelly (and gorgeous) rock voice had welcomed us to With The Beatles<\/em>, Beatles for Sale<\/em>, and A Hard Day\u2019s Night<\/em>. And if not John, then it had always been Paul ushering in the 14 elegant servings laid upon the table by The Fab Four. Never, ever, ever had an LP been kicked off by George. Even Harrison\u2019s most devoted fans were puzzled.<\/p>\n

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Nothing about \u201cTaxman\u201d was business as usual. Even the subject matter.<\/p>\n

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We were to discover, over the course of the next hour, that Revolver<\/em> was revolutionary, a serious LP about serious topics: loneliness, loss, death, tragedy, and yes, even taxes. No silly love songs, these. Revolver<\/em> sprang from the fertile landscape of upheaval: John\u2019s failing marriage and the backlash of his \u201cJesus\u201d comments, Paul\u2019s ongoing struggles with Jane Asher, George\u2019s religious awakening, the lads\u2019 disenchantment with fame, and the life-altering inclusion of drugs into their experience. Oh, the times they were a-changin,\u2019 and no album revealed those vast changes more graphically than Revolver<\/em>. Indeed, the records\u2019 first seven words swept the listener into the grim, beleaguered world of The Beatles.<\/p>\n

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\u201cLet me tell you how it will be\u2026\u201d<\/strong> This was the phrase that John, Paul, George, and Ringo had grown accustomed to hearing\u2026from Brian Epstein, Brian Sommerville, George Martin, Walter Shenson, Dick Lester, Dick James, and at times, even their own Neil Aspinall. John had heard the acrimonious phrase when he\u2019d married Cynthia and was ordered to keep her cloistered and quiet. George heard it when he\u2019d refused to go on the 1964 World Tour without Ringo. And lately, they\u2019d all heard it as they\u2019d vehemently protested the need to go out \u201con the road\u201d while Brian had just as adamantly demanded they go right on touring. They were told \u201chow it would be.\u201d And, no one \u2013- it seemed \u2013- listened to The Beatles, most especially Britain\u2019s tax man, who greedily gobbled up 95 percent of their hard-won earnings. <\/p>\n

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As strongly as George protested the unfair loss of his back-breakingly accrued income in the bitter lyrics of \u201cTaxman,\u201d on a grander scale, he was also protesting the group\u2019s loss of autonomy. The Beatles felt that they had no voice, no say in anything. And though \u201cTaxman\u201d is, without a doubt, a strong Harrison offering, all of The Beatles played a part in making this song work. They all firmly believed in the sentiment this song was expressing. Thus \u201cTaxman\u201d became a rare collaboration, a one-for-all and all-for-one group effort. <\/p>\n

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John assisted George with the lyrics, suggesting that the background chorus sing, \u201cAhhhh, Mr. Wilson! Ahhh, Mr. Heath!\u201d instead of the original words: \u201cAnybody got a bit of money?\u201d (2) Twanging that chorus to the \u201cBatman\u201d theme sound (3), John and George drove their meaning straight home: \u201cWe\u2019ve been reduced to cartoon characters, y\u2019know!\u201d or more poetically, \u201cWe all live in a dark comedy.\u201d \u201cTaxman\u201d\u2019s simple words held myriad double entendres.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

McCartney, Robert Rodriguez points out in his remarkable book, Revolver: How The Beatles Re-Imagined Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll, supported George as well, offering to pick up his Rickenbacker (not his Hofner) and expertly perform the song\u2019s lead break\u2026even adding a bit of Indian flair, as a cutting edge homage to his friend. And Ringo manned the drums and cowbell with a vehemence this topic engendered in them all. The Beatles were sick to death of being taken advantage of by anyone and everyone. They were taxed, man.<\/p>\n

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At the LP\u2019s very outset -\u2013 in \u201cTaxman\u201d \u2013- The Beatles were boldly calling out their offenders: The Labour Party and its leaders, the Conservative Party and its top brass, the press and film makers, their booking agents and publishing company, their merchandisers and record label, their producer and engineers, their wives and girlfriends, their manager, their roadies and publicity agents\u2026even us, their fans. The boys were sick to death of \u201cone for [them] and nineteen for [everyone else].\u201d Day in and day out, they gave 95 percent as they wrote, sang, performed, acted, overdubbed, answered, bowed, mimed, clowned, smiled on cue, apologized, backtracked, packed up and moved on again, set up and tore down, hurried up and waited\u2026they did everything they were told to do by arrogant others who only did a meager five percent. And they were tired of it. <\/p>\n

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\u201cTaxman\u201d set the tone for the rest of the LP. It said, \u201cWe\u2019ve had enough. More than enough. We are no longer your performing fleas. This time we have something to say. And it\u2019s not just \u2018yeah, yeah, yeah.\u2019 Sit up and take notice! You have been served.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

1. This is Johnathan Gould\u2019s description of \u201cShe Loves You\u201d in his book, Can\u2019t Buy Me Love.
\n2. Robert Rodriguez, Revolver: How The Beatles Re-Imagined Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll, 127.
\n3. Read Robert Rodriguez\u2019s discussion of \u201cTaxman\u201d to find out why this \u201cunmistakable evocation of television\u2019s then-current Batman series\u201d might be impossible! Very interesting!<\/p>\n

\n

Jude Southerland Kessler is the author of the John Lennon Series:\u00a0www.johnlennonseries.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Jude is represented by 910 Public Relations —\u00a0@910PubRel<\/a>\u00a0on Twitter and\u00a0910 Public Relations<\/a>\u00a0on Facebook.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the first of 14 blogs discussing the songs on the Revolver LP. We invite you to add to this introductory information by posting your own facts about the song. We\u2019d also love to hear from you concerning your […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":6612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[98,118,117],"class_list":["post-6609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baby-boomer-beatles-blog","tag-jude-southerland-kessler","tag-taxman","tag-the-beatles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6609"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6613,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6609\/revisions\/6613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thefest.com\/?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}