Taxman

Story

Recording

• Paul McCartney plays the lead solo on a Harrison composition. Taxman is the canonical Revolver track where the lead guitar solo on a George Harrison song is played by Paul McCartney rather than by Harrison himself — an early documented case of cross-Beatle instrumental swap on a member-credited song. Paul: “George let me have a go for that solo because I had an idea… Even though it was his song, he was happy for me to do it.” George: “I was pleased to have Paul play that bit on ‘Taxman’. If you notice, he did like a little Indian bit on it for me.” The solo was cut on Paul’s Epiphone Casino and overdubbed onto Track 2 of take 11.²
• Six sessions, 20 April – 21 June 1966. Four rhythm-track takes on 20 April (EMI Studio Two) were abandoned after on-tape discussion of structure; the band started afresh at a new take 1 on 21 April, reaching take 11 (vocals introduced at take 11). A 22 April reduction folded take 11 into take 12, freeing a track for the cowbell and “Mister Wilson, Mister Heath” overdub. The spoken “One, two, three, four” count-in was added on 16 May, and the final mono and stereo remixes were edited on 21 June.¹²
• The released master is a two-part edit with a copied end-solo. Dissatisfied with the song’s ending, the group decided Paul’s middle-eight guitar solo “should be copied and placed once more at the end.” Because George’s line “and you’re working for no one but me” overlapped into the solo, a new “me” was overdubbed onto Track 4 at 1:11 so it could be turned down in the first part of the song and up (doubled via ADT) in the copied end section. Both the mono (RM5 + RM6) and stereo (RS1 + RS2) released masters are therefore two-part edits assembled at the 21 June remix.²

Equipment

Recording Timeline

• 20 April 1966 (Wed) — takes 1–4 abandoned + structural discussion captured on tape, EMI Studio Two — EMI Studio Two, 2.30pm–2.30am. Recording: Taxman (takes 1–4). P: George Martin. E: Geoff Emerick. 2E: Phil McDonald. “Only two were complete, and at the conclusion of the fourth there was much discussion, caught on tape, about how the song might best be structured. When it was picked up again the next day they started afresh with a new take one.” The 20 April takes are therefore NOT the seed of the released master — they were superseded by the 21 April fresh start.¹
• 21 April 1966 (Thu) — fresh take-one start through take 11 + lead vocal at take 11, EMI Studio Two — EMI Studio Two, 2.30pm–12.50am. Recording: Taxman (takes 1–11). “Takes one through to ten concentrated solely on the rhythm track, the first vocals being introduced at take 11.” Take 11 four-track layout: T1 = electric guitar + Ringo’s drums + Paul’s bass in lockstep; T2 = Ringo’s tambourine + John/Paul “Anybody got a bit of money” lightning-fast backing vocals + Paul’s overdubbed electric guitar including the fierce lead solo; T3 + T4 = George’s double-tracked lead vocal + Paul/John backing harmonies. Putting bass and drums on the same track (T1) is notable given that Paperback Writer a week earlier had isolated bass to its own track — the bass-isolation strategy was not yet universal: “on several Revolver songs (‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, ‘Taxman’, ‘She Said, She Said’), the bass and drums did indeed share a track as they had in previous years.”¹²
• 22 April 1966 (Fri) — tape reduction take 11 into take 12 + cowbell + “Mister Wilson, Mister Heath” overdub, EMI Studio Two — EMI Studio Two, 2.30–11.30pm. Recording: Taxman (tape reduction take 11 into take 12, SI onto take 12). The lyric replacement was a deliberate reduction-mix workaround: instrumental content immediately before and after the “Anybody got a bit of money” vocals made a clean punch-in impossible, so a reduction freed one track for the new part. “During the reduction, George’s two lead vocal tracks were combined into one. Additionally, the ‘Anybody got a bit of money’ vocals were quickly turned down at each appropriate spot during the reduction, as were some guitar notes by Paul during the second verse.” The take-12 layout: T1 = bass + drums + guitar (unchanged); T2 = tambourine + reduced “Anybody got a bit of money” + Paul’s guitar and solo (unchanged); T3 = combined George lead vocal + harmonies; T4 = newly-freed track holding cowbell + “Mister Wilson, Mister Heath”.¹²
• 27 April 1966 (Wed) — rough mono remix 1 from take 12 (unused), EMI Studio Three — Studio Three (control room only), 6.00–11.30pm. Mono mixing: Taxman (remix 1, from take 12) plus ten other Revolver-era remixes that evening. “Eleven remixes in one evening — and none was chosen for inclusion on Revolver. The Beatles were starting to attend the mix sessions and were making their presence felt.” Mono remix 1 was an early-stage attempt abandoned in favour of the final 21 June remix.¹
• 16 May 1966 (Mon) — final SI added the “One, two, three, four” count-in, EMI Studio Two — EMI Studio Two, 2.30pm–1.30am. Recording: Taxman (SI onto take 12). “‘Taxman’ finally received its ‘One, two, three, four’ intro.” The famous spoken count-in that opens both the released master and the Revolver LP is therefore a 16 May 1966 overdub onto take 12, almost a month after the 21 April basic-tracking. Mono remixes 2–5 from take 12 were also cut on 16 May; “None of the four mono mixes of ‘Taxman’ was ever used.”¹
• 21 June 1966 (Tue) — final mono + stereo remixes with the copied end-solo edit, EMI Studio Three — Studio Three (control room only), 2.30–6.30pm. Mono mixing + editing: Taxman (remixes 5 and 6, from take 12). Stereo mixing + editing: Taxman (remixes 1 and 2, from take 12). The released master is a two-part edit in both formats: “The stereo mix is a combination of RS1 (the first part of the song) and RS2 (the remixed solo section), and the mono mix is a combination of RM5 and RM6.” The copied end-solo and the new “me” overdub at 1:11 are the load-bearing decisions of this session.¹²

Studio Notes

• Paul-McCartney-plays-the-lead-solo — central editorial spine. The lead guitar solo on Taxman is played by Paul McCartney on his Epiphone Casino, not by George Harrison. The solo was overdubbed onto Track 2 of take 11 alongside the tambourine and the “Anybody got a bit of money” vocals in a single Track-2 pass. Both the middle-eight occurrence (1:11–1:22 in the released master) and the end-of-song occurrence (1:53 to fadeout) derive from this single Paul-Epiphone performance — the end occurrence is a tape copy of the middle-eight performance, edited at the 21 June final-remix stage (see Releases).²
• The Taxman solo is NOT the source of the Tomorrow Never Knows backwards solo. A long-running secondary-source claim holds that the backwards guitar solo on Tomorrow Never Knows is the Taxman solo reversed and dropped in. Ryan & Kehew explicitly debunk it: “The similarity of the two parts has even prompted some writers in the past to claim that the solo on ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ was in fact the ‘Taxman’ solo, reversed and dropped into the track; this is not true.” They are two separate Paul-Epiphone performances — the Taxman solo on the evening of 21 April, the TNK backwards solo on the evening of 22 April, in the same studio within ~24 hours.¹²
• Lewisohn-flagged remix-numbering anomaly. “Mono remixes five and six of ‘Taxman’ should have been numbered six and seven.” The EMI session-sheet numbering on 21 June was off by one: mono remix 1 had been cut on 27 April and remixes 2–5 on 16 May (all unused), so the 21 June pair were really the sixth and seventh mono remixes of the song. This is a Lewisohn-noted documentary correction, not a substantive issue with the master.¹
• Music-Left-and-Right / vocals-Centre stereo panning. In the Revolver panning analysis, Taxman is bundled with Paperback Writer, “She Said, She Said”, “Good Day Sunshine”, For No One, and “Got To Get You Into My Life” as Emerick stereo mixes following the standard music-Left-and-Right / vocals-Centre approach. This was the Norman-Smith-era stereo convention Emerick continued on roughly half of Revolver; the other half use his newer music-Centre / vocals-hard-panned approach.²
• Documentary takes vs released-master takes. The 20 April takes 1–4 and the 21 April takes 1–11 share the label “1” but are distinct sessions on distinct evenings: the 20 April takes were abandoned and the 21 April session restarted at a new take 1. This is worth flagging because compiled-tape bootleg listings sometimes treat the 20 April takes as continuous with the 21 April sequence — they are not.¹
• Same-evening Paul-Epiphone double — Taxman + TNK. The 22 April 1966 Studio Two booking (2.30–11.30pm) covered two Paul-Epiphone Casino jobs: the Taxman reduction (take 11 → take 12) with the cowbell and “Mister Wilson, Mister Heath” overdub, and two further overdubs onto Mark I (the working title of Tomorrow Never Knows) take 3 — “a whining sitar played by George and an additional Lennon vocal, again put through a Leslie speaker.” The chronology is therefore the Taxman solo on 21 April, the TNK backwards solo on 22 April, both on Paul’s Epiphone within a day of each other.¹²

Releases

• 1966 UK mono LP Revolver (5 August 1966, Parlophone PMC 7009, side A track 1) — The released mono master is the 21 June 1966 edit of mono remixes 5 + 6 from take 12. The end-solo is a tape copy of the middle-eight solo, not a separate performance: “The group were apparently dissatisfied with the ending of the song, and it was decided that Paul’s guitar solo should be copied and placed once more at the end.” Because George’s last line “and you’re working for no one but me” overlapped into the solo section, a new “me” was overdubbed onto Track 4 at 1:11, turned down in the first part of the song and up (doubled via ADT) in the copied end section. The released mono is therefore a two-part edit (RM5 = first part + RM6 = remixed solo-section copy with the new “me”).¹²
• 1966 UK stereo LP Revolver (5 August 1966, Parlophone PCS 7009, side A track 1) — The released stereo master is the 21 June edit of stereo remixes 1 + 2 from take 12 — the same two-part structure as the mono (RS1 = first part + RS2 = remixed solo-section copy), with the music-Left-and-Right / vocals-Centre panning.¹²
• 1966 US mono LP (8 August 1966, Capitol T-2576, side A track 1) — Released three days after the UK pressing; sourced from a copy tape of the UK mono master. (Per §1 less-specific-when-uncertain: neither Lewisohn 1988 nor Ryan & Kehew 2006 enumerates the Capitol US T-2576 disc-cutting equipment chain.)
• 1966 US stereo LP (8 August 1966, Capitol ST-2576) — Continues the 1966 stereo master (RS1 + RS2 edit) onto the US Capitol release, with the same two-part edit and music-L/R + vocals-Centre panning.²
• Anthology 2 (1996, Apple/Capitol) — alternate mix of take 11 — “A mix of Take 11 as it stood at the end of that first day [21 April 1966] can be heard on Anthology 2.” It captures Taxman BEFORE the 22 April reduction-and-overdub, with the original “Anybody got a bit of money” vocals on T2 still at full level: no cowbell, no “One, two, three, four” count-in (added 16 May), no copied end-solo (added 21 June), no new “me” overdub at 1:11 — an unusually well-defined snapshot of the take-11 state.²
• 2009 Stereo Remasters — Revolver (9 September 2009, Apple/EMI) — Allan Rouse / Guy Massey / Steve Rooke 24-bit flat transfer of the 1966 stereo master. Preserves the RS1 + RS2 edit, the music-L/R + vocals-Centre panning, the count-in, the cowbell + “Mister Wilson, Mister Heath” vocals, and the copied end-solo unchanged. (Per §1: Apple/EMI metadata; outside the Tier-1 canon.)
• 2022 Revolver Special Edition (Giles Martin / Sam Okell remix, 28 October 2022, Apple/UMe) — Post-Lewisohn remix using machine-learning-assisted source separation (the “MAL” demixing system developed by Peter Jackson’s WingNut Films during the Get Back documentary). The remix isolates the Track-1 bass + drums + guitar stack into separate stems, allowing the 1966 music-L/R hard-pan to be re-mixed toward a more modern centre-anchored field. (Per §1: Apple/UMe metadata; outside the Tier-1 canon.)

Sources

1. Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions (London: Hamlyn, 1988), pp. 75, 76, 77, 78, 84.
2. Kevin Ryan and Brian Kehew, Recording the Beatles: The Studio Equipment and Techniques Used to Create Their Classic Albums (Houston: Curvebender Publishing, 2006), pp. 413, 420, 421, 430.

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