"For What It's Worth" is a song written by Stephen Stills, American guitarist, singer-songwriter and member of the folk rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and first recorded by Buffalo Springfield – the short-lived but influential folk rock group that served as a springboard for the careers of Neil Young and Stills – and released as a single in January 1967, peaking at #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2004, this song was voted #63 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.As the song's title appears nowhere in its lyrics, most casual listeners know it better by the first line of chorus: "Stop, children, what's that sound? Everybody look what's going down."
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 response to the escalating unrest in the Sunset Strip curfew riots, also known as the "hippie riots," which were a series of clashes that took place between police and young club-goers on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, California, beginning in the mid-1960s and continuing through 1969.
"For What It's Worth" has been covered countless times, as well as sampled, referenced, and used in film and other media. One notable reference was in the1998 song "He Got Game" by Long Island, NY, hip hop music group Public Enemy which not only samples "For What It's Worth", but also features Stephen Stills re-performing the bridge especially for that track. Others contend that the most popular version was that which was performed on a 1978 episode of The Muppet Show, which re-writes the song with animals singing slightly altered anti-hunting lyrics and contains a musical interlude filled with hunters wildly shooting their guns while animals (from Emmett Otter’s Jug Band) hide and take-cover. Yeah, the symbolism is heavy, dig it.
See you backstage at Tuck Shop for the Quiet Set this Wednesday and Thursday from 9.00 pm.
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