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Then they hired Jimmy Iovine, who was on the rise after engineering Bruce Springsteen‘s Born to Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town, and producing Patti Smith‘s Easter. Iovine listened to “Refugee” and “Here Comes My Girl” on the tape and, Campbell recalled, “‘I don’t care what else you do. The band’s manager, Elliot Roberts, heard the demo and thought it was on the right track. I don’t think he saw it the same way as me, where the chorus would go. “I remember writing really quickly to his tape,” Petty recalled in Paul Zollo’s Conversations With Tom Petty. He put that and a few other new songs on a cassette and gave it to Petty, who recognized it as something special.
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Realizing it was “more than just an exercise,” Campbell added a bridge and built a demo using a DrumDrops track, rhythm and lead guitar and bass. Then he added two more chords – D major followed by a B major – that led back into the main progression. So he put one of the DrumDrops beats on one track, created a progression around three chords – F-sharp minor, E major and A major – and used it as a bed over which he’d play lead. Inspired by a new Gibson Les Paul gold top and Albert King’s 1966 Stax classic “Oh, Pretty Woman,” Campbell wanted to practice soloing in the key of F-sharp minor. Vieira put out several volumes under that title in the late ’70s – that contained song-length tracks of various rhythms (rock, disco, Latin, etc.). Campbell had an album called DrumDrops – he couldn’t recall the drummer’s name, but Joey D. As guitarist Mike Campbell explained on Brian Koppelman’s podcast The Moment, his wife had recently bought him a TEAC four-track tape recorder that he began experimenting with.
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The song had come together quickly and almost by accident. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers knew they had a hit on their hands with “Refugee.” But the process of getting it down on tape caused friction with the producer – and one group member was fired and the song’s cowriter left town for two days before it was all over.