Seeing as he was considered to be ‘The Quiet Beatle’, it might have seemed surprising when George Harrison started writing more and more songs for The Beatles. It would have been even more surprising when Harrison came up with something as scathing and aggressive as ‘Taxman’.

The opener of 1966’s Revolver, ‘Taxman’ is a heavy, propulsive rocker with a caustic lyric written in protest and in response to the higher level of progressive tax imposed in the United Kingdom by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

A financial report from their accountancy firm Bryce, Hammer, Isherwood & Co, which was delivered earlier in the year, had first drawn The Beatles’ attention to their deteriorating financial predicament and warned that two of the group were on the brink of bankruptcy. Seemingly unthinkable considering the group’s success, the Fab Four were not taking home anywhere near as much as they were making, or as much as they thought they were making, thanks to a staggering 95% supertax imposed on the country’s top earners by Wilson’s government. In discussing the 95% tax rate with Maureen Cleave in The Evening Standard, Harrison compared Harold Wilson to Robin Hood’s archenemy, The Sheriff of Nottingham.