Artist: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Album: Damn the Torpedoes
I originally got this album while I was trying to draw a comic book. I’d heard “Refugee” on the radio, and it became an important chunk of the soundtrack in my head, so I actually sought this album out for this particular song. It’s actually fairly unusual for me to discover a band by listening to terrestrial radio–but Tom Petty is the exception.
Like many songs in my library, this song brings back memories of a specific time in my life. I was getting close to graduating from college, and I had at least figured out what I wanted to do with my life. (At that point in time, drawing comic book illustrations was an escape from my classwork. My secondary major was in studio art and after doing highly conceptual paintings and prints for several years, breaking out the pen and ink to draw ridiculous characters having stupid personal problems was a welcome break.)
But the song became a favorite independent of the original inspiration that it gave me. It ended up on my mp3 player, and got carted around with me to a lot of my classes, especially studio classes. Hearing this song still reminds me of being in the painting studio, lugging giant canvases up three flights of steps, and the smell of turpentine.
The song itself embodies a lot of what good, basic rock music should be: a basic universal message with a great hook. This is a song that still likes to take up residence in my brain and refuse to leave for awhile. It isn’t as guitar-heavy as my usual fare, but the both the guitar and the organ are used to good effect in the song.
There’s also something about the beat of “Refugee” that makes it a great cruising song in the car. I’ve already cruised right past my exit while rocking out to this song!