{"id":114357,"date":"2025-08-03T01:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-03T01:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/114357\/"},"modified":"2025-08-03T01:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T01:04:10","slug":"mike-campbell-names-the-tom-petty-song-that-captured-a-moment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/114357\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Campbell names the Tom Petty song that “captured a moment”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mike<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Chris Phelps)<\/p>\n

Sat 2 August 2025 17:30, UK <\/p>\n

Even though the band were very clearly named in a way that made Tom Petty<\/a> seem like the star of the show, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was far more of a collaborative endeavour than it might seem on paper. <\/p>\n

Accompanied by a host of stellar musicians, the group may have been Petty\u2019s in name, but was far more about the sum of their parts, and over the course of 13 albums, they proved their worth as both individuals and as a unit.<\/p>\n

One of the key components of the group was guitarist Mike Campbell<\/a>, who, while initially impressing the leading man with his exceptional musicianship, quickly established himself as an equally brilliant songwriter and co-producer, and his chemistry with Petty in this regard was palpable from their earliest songwriting collaborations. Their earliest release written together, taken from the band\u2019s self-titled debut, was \u2018Rockin\u2019 Around (With You)\u2019, and while this wasn\u2019t a bad way of starting things off, they\u2019d rapidly move forward and onto greater achievements.<\/p>\n

By the time the band had moved onto their third record, Damn The Torpedoes, Petty and Campbell had a handful more co-written songs under their belts, but it was on this record where the duo would end up writing what would become their most beloved track, \u2018Refugee\u2019. Opening the record with such a bold statement of a track is always a strong move, and one that shows the intent of a group operating at the top of their game, but Campbell himself acknowledged that it wasn\u2019t exactly a straightforward process to get it right.<\/p>\n

As was often the case when the duo collaborated on a song, Campbell contributed the musical elements of the song, with Petty writing the lyrics to go over the top. However, in an interview with Songfacts, the guitarist noted that the recording process ended up being gruelling due to how precise they wanted things to be. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a hard record to make,\u201d Campbell explained. \u201cIt was a 4-track that I made at my house. Tom wrote over the music as it was, no changes, but it took us forever to actually cut the track.\u201d<\/p>\n

While developing a song from a four-track recording sounds like it would be a simple process, Campbell ended up being more meticulous than the original demo proved itself to be. \u201cWe must have recorded that 100 times,\u201d he continued. \u201cI remember being so frustrated with it one day that I just left the studio and went out of town for two days. I just couldn\u2019t take the pressure anymore, but then I came back and when we regrouped we were actually able to get it down on tape.\u201d<\/p>\n

Was it ultimately worth all of the stress and hassle of getting things right? Given that \u2018Refugee\u2019 is one of the band\u2019s most famous songs, and one that was played at virtually every Heartbreakers<\/a> show until the death of Petty in 2017, it evidently needed to be perfect. They may have torn their hair out while making it, but Campbell looks back on it with a greater fondness now.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Refugee\u2019 always makes me happy,\u201d Campbell conceded. \u201cMaybe because it was so hard to get on the tape, there was a time when I thought it would never come out, that we just can\u2019t do it. It always sounds like it really captured a moment. If I had to pick one favourite, I\u2019d probably pick that first.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Chris Phelps) Sat 2 August 2025 17:30, UK Even though the band were very…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":114358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,71917,975,67152,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-114357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-mike-campbell","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114962147941518811","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=114357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/114358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=114357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=114357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=114357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}