The amount of scarves this song has me pulling from its sleeves makes me feel like a clown about to cry at a party. Just when I think I’m done, there’s more. Here’s the official audio, and the video (video’s audio is slightly different).
Caveats before we begin:
- This is my own interpretation of the work. While I proudly belong to Geese Nation, I am not actually affiliated with the band :[ and cannot claim my arguments to be the truth or what they intended.
- That said. I am 100% right about everything.
Taxes
I should burn in hell
I should burn in hell
But I don’t deserve this
Nobody deserves this
If you want me to pay my taxes
If you want me to pay my taxes
You’d better come over with a crucifix
You’re gonna have to nail me down.
Doctor, doctor! heal yourself
Doctor, doctor! heal yourself
And I will break my own heart
I will break my own heart from now on.
This is not Cameron Winter’s usual stream-of-consciousness style of writing like we see with Geese’s 3D Country and his recent solo album, Heavy Metal. This time, “Taxes” reads like a premeditated poem layered with double meanings and purpose. Here, we have a writer who made a deliberate switch in writing style as a way to lead by example. The band plays with form both in the doubling of lyrics and the change in the middle and in doing so reveals the truth about our own patterns. We do not consume to satisfy ourselves, but to prevent others from surviving, using conformity as a means to unjustly absolve ourselves of guilt. That is the key. The characters in “Taxes” act upon others. Geese tells us to examine this choice with unwavering empathy, and convinces us to follow a moral code. Though, it’s not enough to simply recognize we’re hurting others, but to feel the same pain as we have caused.
The amount of doubling is noteworthy in how it both emphasizes each idea and presents choices. Max Bassin said in an interview, “We really loved the switch that the song does right in the middle…It’s one song and then it’s another song.” In terms of form alone, we have two songs, six couplets with repetition, and light versus dark. The single cover art has a bright blue sky in contrast to the dark video. The album art has a trumpet and a gun. A classic dichotomy. Don’t be bad. Be good instead! But how can you decide what’s good in a world that always changes?
In Japanese, there’s a concept that instructor Cure Dolly called “self move/other move“. This is more than a grammar point I need to know for the JLPT. Here we have makeru, to be defeated (self move) and makasu, to defeat (other move). In “Taxes,” each character is other-moving, placing their actions on others. “Doctor, heal yourself” and “I will break my own heart from now on” mean that both characters must go from other-move to self-move.
There are three characters in this song, and all of them suck in their own special way. The speaker breaks hearts despite knowing it’s wrong. The tax collector (whose identity is debatable) takes from the speaker without permission. The doctor tries to fix other people’s problems rather than address their own. Acting as a herald, the speaker calls all three of them out on their bullshit because he himself is faced with an empathy so painful it rivals the depths of hell. All three of them have the ability to change the direction of their behavior from others to the self. Not as a way to stand among their peers in conformity of what might today be considered morally good, but to be fully aware of themselves.
“Physician, Heal Thyself,” is a proverb that basically means to deal with your own problems before you try to fix others, like the flight attendants say. The doctor, who famously heals others, is told to heal themselves. If we follow the logical pattern, we can also assume the speaker usually breaks other people’s hearts and will break his own from now on. And I don’t believe we have an egotistical Cameron calling himself a hotshot heartbreaker. Rather, we have a speaker who has either discovered empathy for the first time or has been broken by the same harm as he’s inflicted. There is no apology, only a recognition of self and a resolve to change.
Lyrically, this last verse is doing the most challenging work of the song. It introduces a logical pattern, commands all characters to ‘other-move,’ and gives us more background about the speaker. So what do we know about him? Do we know why he should burn in hell? Why and how does he break hearts? Is this person designed to cause harm and can only control where it’s aimed? We don’t know a damn thing, turns out. I’m guessing Cameron would like it that way.
Literal or metaphorical, the song changes color depending on your interpretation of the word “taxes,” but it keeps the same flavor. Taken literally, the tax collector’s identity is likely the US government. It’s July 2025 and many people are concerned that our taxes are funding the genocide in Gaza. “Taxes” could certainly be a protest song, as there is much to criticize about how our government does or doesn’t spend our money. Metaphorically, the tax collector is an entity that takes from the speaker without his consent. Taxes could be money, it could be dignity, love, any number of things. RIP Henry David Thoreau, you would’ve loved Geese.
We’re all poets here, but ultimately the song still slaps whether we’re being literal or metaphorical. The collector has plenty of things to fix in their own house before coming after our speaker, who will fight to the death rather than lose whatever he’s holding onto. In the third verse, he’s holding onto his heart so nobody but him can break it. So why isn’t this a love song?
Geese’s last album 3D Country and Cameron Winter’s solo album Heavy Metal both deal with themes of loneliness and romantic love. This time, we as listeners are certainly allowed to take this song as a romantic lament. And as a standalone song, that could work. However, the nature of the video alone screams social commentary. That plus the album’s title, Getting Killed, and the album cover of Emily Green with both a herald’s trumpet and gun pointed at the viewer prevent me from calling this a love anthem. More importantly, I trust that the writer who brought us “Love Takes Miles” would not fold a love song beneath this many unrelated references. Instead, these elements suggest judgement and rebirth.
In the official music video, Geese references Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son. Goya made a series of paintings in his home directly on the walls between 1820-1823. No canvas, no titles or notes. Experts believe this painting is probably about the time Saturn didn’t want his children to overthrow him, so he ate them. As The Replacements would say, “he might be a father, but he sure ain’t a dad.” Also, what was that prop made out of?
Regardless, if we liken a concert-goer to Saturn, we can argue that the crazed audience acts upon their own selfish desires and consumes each other to prevent others from climbing the ladder first. Kill or be killed. But must we be cannibalized first before knowing it’s wrong to eat the homies?
The video begins as if shot on an audience member’s phone. You see their POV as they weave through the crowd and get closer to the stage. It looks like a chill, intimate concert that would make you feel safe and respected, as the audience easily allows the viewer to the front despite their lateness to the show. But when Geese hits the final note in the 2nd verse, “down,” the sound and energy expand, and the audience becomes chaotic and violent. What a word to change things, eh? Like a command – Down with civility baby, we’re eating feet!
In the official tour promo & their current website’s design, there’s a gun, crucifix, sword, and a trumpet. The four of which sound like the makings of a great D&D campaign (Geesecast episode 4. Please). On the single’s cover art, Emily Green towers above us in a pure white robe on a bright day, sword of judgement in hand. Her stance is open, but she is turned away from us, hair draped over her face as if she doesn’t want to look at us. Is she pushing us away or beckoning us to join her in the deep blue sky? Since they recently posted a short on YouTube with the caption “found the light,” I’m gonna say we are being beckoned to die and join them in heaven. But let’s just say they’re talking about finding the light within, like in a metaphorical sense while we’re still alive and they don’t truly mean anything more sinister (omg am I in a cult). What do they really mean?
Let’s turn to Ralph Waldo Emerson. (As an aside, he and Thoreau were both alive when Goya made the Black Paintings) Here’s an excerpt from “Self Reliance” (honestly the whole essay is such a banger it was hard to choose just one excerpt). Essentially: Absolve you to yourself regardless of what society deems good or evil, because the definitions of those words change. In “Nina + Field of Cops,” Cameron sings, “My name is gonna sound old to you, but names are donuts on the sea, names are peanuts in the trees, names bid you to beg for trash.” These two excerpts hold either end of the same jump rope. Choose what is right in your heart no matter who surrounds you. (don’t be a dick about it though)
And at 2:48 we have someone who “found the light.” This person alone – apart from the band on stage – stands still among the violence, tears dripping down their face. Neither as a victim or perpetrator, but someone who chose to separate themselves from the mob through nonviolence. The Geese Way. To gaze above the mess like Cameron, Emily, and Dominic (Max is busy getting killed with a drumstick, which checks out) and absolve themselves in a way that allows for inner peace.
Through the video and use of references, and by making a lyrical and sonic choice that crafts this song into doubles, Geese leads the way to the bright light. First we gotta kill our past selves, along with the parts that yearn to destroy others who are already ahead of us or rising there. Which hopefully is not an everyday experience for you but I digress. Then, we gotta accept the truth of what’s left. Chin up! There’s always another song to change into.
Cheers,
Eva
P.S. Some have called this “rapture vibes”. To thee I say: Ye who knows more about Jesus may write thine own essay. I didn’t even know “Physician, Heal Thyself” was a thing until my friend Emmett told me. Thanks, Emmett!
Sources: Geese, Taxes Audio, Taxes Video, Cure Dolly, Henry David Thoreau, Saturn Devouring His Son, Self Reliance, Thanks for the photo, Thanks for the Max Interview, Actual Max Interview (Beg. 46:50), NPR tax conversation
