beatles – The Surly Subgroup

By Sam Brunson

Almost seven years ago(!), Leandra wrote about the Beatles’s “Taxman” to celebrate its 50th anniversary. At around the same time, I tried to figure out and record the song.

At the time, unfortunately, neither my playing nor my recording chops were up to the challenge. Over the pandemic, though, I spent some time and money on instruments and recording equipment and have gotten a lot better at it.

So about a week ago, I decided to record a version of “Taxman.” I listened around to various versions and ended up modeling my version largely on the recording by Bill Wyman’s Rythm Kings (and, to a lesser extent, Soulive).

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A week and a half ago, Leandra posted some of the history and context of the Beatle’s “Taxman.” It got me thinking about something I’ve been wondering about for a while: what songs are out there that talk about tax?[fn1]

I’ve found a couple places that have addressed the question, but they’re all deficient. “Sound Opinions” did a show on the question this last April, but, in spite of calling it the “Tax Day Special,” they included songs about money broadly, not taxes specifically.

VH1 got the taxes (mostly) right (“Take the Money and Run” is a stretch for my purposes), but limited themselves to 10 songs, and all of the songs are rock songs. (Still, I’m going to steal several of theirs for this.) Continue reading “Tax Canon, Music Edition” →