April 8, 2022 —– Chart #138

Hello Music Friends,

Happy Friday and welcome to the 138^th edition of Chart of the Week? Want to see some of the past editions? Want to share Chart of The Week with some of your friends? The visit my website  SongChart.Space. Its all there. 138 song stories and a library of all the past charts in a downloadable library. Check it out: https://songchart.space/

Today we go back to 1980 and a great rockin song from Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. Refugee is a song we have all cranked up on the radio and played drums on the steering wheel to. “Refugee” was released in January 1980 as the second single from their album Damn the Torpedoes, and peaking at No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song’s co-writer Mike Campbell said “Refugee” was one of the first songs he wrote, and recounted, ‘I just wrote the music and handed it to Tom [Petty] and he put the words over it, and when he did he found a way to make the chorus lift up without changing chords.’

In a November 2003 interview with Songfacts, Campbell described the recording sessions for “Refugee”:

That was a hard record to make. It was a 4-track that I made at my house. He (Tom Petty) wrote over the music as it was, no changes, but it took us forever to actually cut the track. We just had a hard time getting the feel right. We must have recorded that 100 times. I remember being so frustrated with it one day that – I think this is the only time I ever did this – I just left the studio and went out of town for two days. I just couldn’t take the pressure anymore, but then I came back and when we regrouped we were actually able to get it down on tape.

Billboard Magazine rated “Refugee” as being “Petty at his best,” specifically praising the “gutsy rock vocal and searing guitar lines.” Cash Box said it has “growing interplay between guitar and organ, coupled with Petty’s forceful vocals.”

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were an American rock band from Gainesville, Florida. Formed in 1976, the band originally comprised Tom Petty (lead singer, guitar), Mike Campbell (lead guitarist), Ron Blair (bass guitar), Stan Lynch (drums), and Benmont Tench (keyboards). In 1981, Blair, weary of the touring lifestyle, departed the band. His replacement, Howie Epstein, stayed with the band for the next two decades. In 1991, Scott Thurston joined the band as a multi-instrumentalist—mostly on rhythm guitar and second keyboards. In 1994, Steve Ferrone replaced Lynch on drums. Blair returned to the Heartbreakers in 2002, the year before Epstein’s death. The band had a long string of hit singles including “Breakdown”, “American Girl”, “Refugee”, “The Waiting”, “Learning to Fly”, and “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”, among many others, that stretched over several decades of work.

The band remained active and popular, touring regularly until Petty’s death in 2017, after which the Heartbreakers disbanded. Their final studio album, Hypnotic Eye, was released in 2014.

The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, their first year of eligibility. Although most of their material was produced and performed under the name “Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers”, Petty released three solo albums, the most successful of which was Full Moon Fever (1989). In these releases, some members of the band contributed as collaborators, producing and performing as studio musicians.

Some other interpretations of Refugee:

Melissa Etheridge   https://youtu.be/KONLrSI2_Y0 

Alvin & The Chipmunks  https://youtu.be/TXNJTd5aSoo 

The Gaslight Anthem:  https://youtu.be/hIVFVWvRBrA 

Vains of Jenna:  https://youtu.be/qM6m6sJhI-Y 

Keep rockin my friends,

Stan