Songfacts®:

• "Refugees" is Van Der Graf Generator frontman Peter Hammill's ballad about the sense of loss he felt after moving out of a shared flat with two close friends.
• In 1968, Hammill lived in a crumbling basement flat in West Kensington with his school friend Mike McLean and McLean's girlfriend, future actress Susan Penhaligon. "Peter would sit writing songs for Van der Graaf in the front room," Penhaligon recalled to Mojo in May 2002. "He was so dedicated to that band."
  
  After six to nine months, Hammill moved out. He saw his departure as a parting of the ways, feeling that the three friends would never again be as close as they had been.
  
  "In the way of things with songwriting, you often take not-that-dramatic stuff from your personal life and try to put it into a broader context, and that's the case with Refugees," Hammill told Uncut.
  
  The lyric addresses his former flatmates, referencing Mike and Susie by name:
  
  West is Mike and Susie, West is where I love
• Hammill wrote the song alone. In sleeve notes for the 1974 compilation Killers, Angels, Refugees, he summed up its universal theme: "We are all refugees, and there is no home but hope."
• The track was a pivotal turning point for the group's career. "It was an important song for us," Hammill explained to Uncut, "because it's the one that convinced manager and Charisma founder Tony Stratton-Smith that there might be some future in Van der Graaf Generator."
• "Refugees" appears on The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other, Van der Graaf Generator's second album, released in February 1970. Producer John Anthony, who also helmed their debut album, recorded the record in just four days at Trident Studios.
• A reworked single version featuring a different arrangement with a nine-piece orchestral section followed in April 1970 but failed to chart. Nevertheless, The Least We Can Do Is Wave to Each Other was the only Van der Graaf Generator album to reach the UK Top 50.