Comments on: 10 Cool Things About ‘Refugee’ by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

By: Tony Conniff

Tony Conniff — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 21:00:11 +0000

Bob,
Thanks for reading and for your encouraging comments!
Best wishes,
Tony

By: Bob Moore

Bob Moore — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 12:04:46 +0000

In point number 8), I like your highlighting his use of repetition. In poetry circles they like to use the word alliteration. I like also the way you break out the structure of the song in terms of numbers of lines and bars for the verses and choruses. The way Petty delivers this song, he’s delivering it almost as a narrative, difficult to pull off, but he does it in a way that sounds natural as you mentioned. Thanks for bringing up these points.

By: Tony Conniff

Tony Conniff — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 02:40:10 +0000

In reply to Richard Forman.

Richard,
Thanks for reading and for your perceptive comments!
Best wishes,
Tony

By: Richard Forman

Richard Forman — Fri, 06 Oct 2017 02:33:24 +0000

Great essay about a truly classic song. I was really glad you mentioned the organ performance which too my ears is maybe greatest thing of all! As evocative and intimat as the lyric is, as much as it feels like two peoole having a real conversation about a situation we feel like we’ve been in or can understand, the end result is still entirely ambiguous and yields little of its mystery to us, like a half-overheard conversation, we pick up the words and sentences and the mood but we still don’t really know what is going on, what they’re talking, even what the fantastic statement “you don’t have to live like a refugee” means precisely, it’s just how the narrator describes his perception of his friend’s life. Petty is one of rocks best lyricists.