Thursday, June 26, 2014

Beware the Pennies on Your Eyes

While pulling a few bits of fabric together tonight I happened to queue up a great recording entitled something like George Harrison Live in Japan.  "Old Brown Shoe" and "Give Me Love" somewhat soothed my work-rattled nerves when the sewing machine and I did not agree on all details.  But then "Taxman" came up.  This great tune was released on Revolver, a fabulous album denoting some remarkable and dramatic changes in the Beatles' music.  Not to mention the terrific cover art.  I remember being a bit stunned by how different Revolver was from their prior work.  Not quite the revolution of Sgt. Pepper, but dramatic indeed.  This was not one of my early favorites from the album, a bit too topical for me at the time, but I have always enjoyed the polemical character of this number.

But how things have changed!  Nowadays George sounds like a spokesman for the 1%!  And, more to the point, the Know-Nothing Roaches whose decision-making on every issue seems to start with determining where our President stands could easily adopt this as a theme-song.

Yes, the late '60's was a more innocent time.  And we could perhaps simply file this great lyric which might now grate a bit (it does for me) in these days of "NO NEW TAXES" in the category of Everyone Has Always Hated Paying Taxes of any sort.

The Beatles were likely facing much larger tax assessments when this tune was originally recorded than they were accustomed to growing up.  And I suspect the tax structure in England at the time might have been what a reasonably progressive person might consider tolerable, namely the rich paid a bit higher percentage than the middle classes, who paid a higher rate than the lower classes.  Imagine that!

But I could imagine quite a variety of takes on this.