Day After Day #248: Refugee

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

Refugee (1979)

From one set of Heartbreakers to another: While Johnny Thunders and his ragged crew of junkies and reprobates were ripping it up in NYC, Tom Petty was working with his own band of the same name. 

A native of Gainesville, Florida, Petty had formed the band Mudcrutch in 1970 with guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench joining a few years later. The band enjoyed local success for a few years, but in 1974 moved to Los Angeles to try and get a major label deal. Leon Russell signed them to his Shelter Records label, but after their first single "Depot Street" didn't chart, the band split up.

Petty stayed on the Shelter payroll as a songwriter and solo artist and in 1976, re-teamed with Campbell and Tench to form Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers with Stan Lynch on drums and Ron Blair on bass. The band's self-titled debut combined Southern rock with a harder-edged snarl, but it didn't do much initially in the U.S. A short tour of the U.K. was successful and gave the group a boost. After news of their popularity in Britain, the label re-released "Breakdown" in the U.S. in 1978 and the song became a top 40 hit. "American Girl" also became a classic rock staple in later years after the band got big.

Petty's second album on Shelter was 1978's You're Gonna Get It! hit #23 on the Billboard album chart and featured the punchy single "I Need to Know," which hit #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, and "Listen to Her Heart," which got to #59. 

In 1979, Petty and Heartbreakers weren't thrilled when ABC Records, Shelter's distributor, was sold to MCA. Petty refused to be transferred to another label and filed for bankruptcy as a tactic against MCA. After the dispute was eventually settled, the group released Damn the Torpedoes on MCA's Backstreet label and it was a breakthrough hit. On the strength of lead single "Don't Do Me Like That," which hit #10 on the Hot 100, the album sat at #2 on the Billboard albums chart for seven weeks; the album blocking them from the top spot was Pink Floyd's The Wall.

The second single, "Refugee," took a while to put together. Campbell brought in the music and Petty quickly wrote the lyrics, but producer Jimmy Iovine could not find a drum sound he liked. The band recorded 70 takes of the drums, which led to Lynch being fired during the sessions. After the band tried using B.J. Wilson of Procol Harum and Phil Seymour of the Dwight Twilley Band, they brought Lynch back. Campbell even walked out for a few days out of frustration.

But it finally came together and it's a pissed-off classic, thanks to Petty's sneering vocals and Campbell's angry guitar.

"We did somethin' we both know it/We don't talk too much about it/Ain't no real big secret all the same/Somehow we get around it/Listen it don't really matter to me, baby/You believe what you want to believe/You see, you don't have to live like a refugee."

Petty later said the song was his reaction to the pressures of the music business and especially the legal battle with MCA. Even after it was resolved, he was still so angry it colored a lot of the songs on Damn the Torpedoes.

"Somewhere, somehow somebody/Must have kicked you around some/Tell me why you want to lay there/Revel in your abandon/Honey, it don't make no difference to me, baby/Everybody's had to fight to be free/See, you don't have to live like a refugee/Now baby, you don't have to live like a refugee/Baby, we ain't the first/I'm sure a lot of other lovers have been burned/Right this seems real to you/But it's one of those things/You gotta feel to be true."

The song resonated with listeners, going to #15 on the Hot 100 and #2 in Canada, where I was living at the time. Both "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee" were huge radio hits in Toronto. Back in those early days, Petty and the Heartbreakers were often getting paired with punk acts like the Ramones, and songs like "Refugee" make you understand why. 

Damn the Torpedoes is considered one of Petty's best albums, with other hits like "Here Comes My Girl" and "Even the Losers." Unfortunately for Petty, he had more label problems with the release of the band's next album, 1981's Hard Promises. MCA wanted to charge an additional dollar over list price (which was $8.98 at the time) and Petty was vocal about his opposition, even doing a cover interview with Rolling Stone and threatening not to release the album. MCA eventually gave in and the album stayed at $8.98 and became a top 10 hit, with "The Waiting" getting up to #19 on the singles chart. The band also teamed up with Stevie Nicks for the song "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" from her debut solo album; the song was a big hit, going to #3 on the Hot 100.

Petty and the Heartbreakers released three more successful albums in the '80s. Blair left the band in 1982 and was replaced by Howie Epstein. Petty also joined the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys in the late '80s with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, and then Petty made his first solo album in 1989, Full Moon Fever. The band wasn't thrilled by his solo move, even though most of them played on the album. Produced by Jeff Lynne, Full Moon Fever was a huge hit, going to #3 on the Billboard 200 and spawning three hit singles. 

The Heartbreakers released Into the Great Wide Open in 1991, but that was the last new music (except for "Mary Jane's Last Dance" off their '93 Greatest Hits album) until 1996, when they did the soundtrack for the movie She's the One. Lynch left in 1994 and Dave Grohl played with the band on Saturday Night Live and several live shows; Petty offered him the job but Grohl chose to focus on his solo project, which eventually turned into Foo Fighters. Petty released another solo album, Wildflowers, that year (and one more in 2006). Drummer Steve Ferrone and multinstrumentalist Scott Thurston joined the group officially after the 1999 release of the Petty/Heartbreakers album Echo. 

Petty had even reunited with his first band Mudcrutch, releasing albums in 2008 and 2016. Petty and the Heartbreakers would release three more albums, the last being 2014's Hypnotic Eye, before Petty's death in 2017 of an accidental drug overdose at the age of 66.