I think Refugee was the first Tom Petty song I heard. At least the first one I distinctly remember hearing. I was around 15 years old, going to high school in Hawaii. Up until around 13 or so I was mostly an AM radio "top 40" kid. My freshman year however I started getting turned on to what today is considered Classic Rock. But back in the late 70's, even music from the 60's was fairly recent. Sure, I missed Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles and the Doors, but I was discovering Led Zeppelin as well, while they were still a band. The Rolling Stones. And Pink Floyd. Even The Grateful Dead, to a lesser degree, (though by the late 80's I would be a fully immersed Deadhead).
So it's maybe a year or so into my "discovery" of 60's rock, when out from my radio comes something strangely familiar, yet with an angst and an urgency that immediately resonated with me.
It Don't Make no difference to me
Everybody got to fight to be free
No You Don't Have to Live like a Refugee!
Over the years I would dig deeper into the Petty catalog and enjoyed many Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers concerts in some some of the Bay Areas most iconic venues - including 9 of the Fillmore shows of the historic 20-show run there in 1997. I saw 3 more there in 1999, including 1 that was later released on DVD. Also pairs of shows at the Greek in Berkeley, both in 2005 and again 2006. I believe that last time I saw them was at Outside Lands in 2008.
I'll miss you, Tom. Rest in Peace.
--Bill
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A sad loss for sure.
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