For What It's Worth (Buffalo Springfield song)

Infobox Single
Name = For What It's Worth


Artist = Buffalo Springfield
from Album = Buffalo Springfield
B-side = "Do I Have to Come Right Out and Say It?"
Released = January 1967
Format = 7" single
Recorded = December 5, 1966
Genre = Folk rock
Length = 2:37
Label = Atco
Writer = Stephen Stills
Producer =
Certification =
Chart position =

#7 (U.S.)

Last single =
This single = "For What It's Worth"
(1967)
Next single = "Bluebird"
(1967)"For What It's Worth" is a song written by Stephen Stills. It was performed by Buffalo Springfield and released as a single in January 1967; it was later added to the re-release of their first album, "Buffalo Springfield." The single peaked at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2004, this song was #63 on "Rolling Stone"'s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

ong information

While the song has come to symbolize worldwide turbulence and confrontational feelings arising from events during the 1960s (particularly the Vietnam War), Stills reportedly wrote the song in reaction to escalating unrest between law enforcement and young club-goers related to the closing of Pandora's Box, a club on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. The song's title appears nowhere in its lyrics; it is more easily remembered by the first line of chorus: "Stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down."

In 2006, Stephen Stills was interviewed by Tom Kent on his radio show "Into the '70s" and pointed out that many people think "For What It's Worth" is about the Kent State Shootings, although it was actually recorded several years before that event.

Cover versions and cultural references

"For What It's Worth" has been covered countless times, as well as sampled, referenced, and used in film and other media. Among these many references, two are most notable for both originality and popularity.

The 1998 song "He Got Game" (from the Spike Lee film of the same name) by hip hop music group Public Enemy not only samples "For What It's Worth", but also features Stephen Stills re-performing the bridge specially for that track.

A February 13, 1978 episode of "The Muppet Show" re-writes the song with animals singing slightly altered anti-hunting lyrics. The musical interlude was filled with hunters wildly shooting their guns while animals (many of them from "Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas") hide. [ [http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/For_What_It%27s_Worth "For What It's Worth at Muppet Wiki] ]

Other covers include: Cher ("3614 Jackson Highway"), Rush ("Feedback"), Rise Against ("AOL Sessions"), Keb' Mo ("Peace...Back By Popular Demand"), and Ozzy Osbourne ("Under Cover") and the Staples Singers.

The original version has appeared in several movies, such as "Coming Home", "Forrest Gump", "Girl, Interrupted", "Lord of War", and "Tropic Thunder", and the TV shows "The West Wing" (in the episode "Isaac and Ishmael") and "The Wonder Years" (in the episode "Swingers").

Notes

External links

* [http://www.reasontorock.com/tracks/for_what_its_worth.html Reasontorock analysis of song]