“Tax Man” by The Beatles

"Taxman" throws open Revolver, the Beatles' 1966 album, and it belongs to George Harrison: he wrote it, sings lead and plays electric guitar, with John Lennon chipping in some of the words. It's a sour, sly broadside at the British taxman, aimed at Harold Wilson's Labour government for skimming more than 90 per cent of the group's earnings, and it name-checks Wilson and the Tory leader Edward Heath for good measure. It was their first topical song, and their first political one, and it marked Harrison as a writer to reckon with beside Lennon and McCartney.

Paul McCartney does double duty on bass and on a stinging, Indian-flavored guitar solo, Ringo Starr works drums, tambourine and cowbell, and George Martin produces. The soul strut underneath fed into mod pop and early punk; the Jam lifted plenty of it for "Start!".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.