“For What It's Worth” by Buffalo Springfield

"For What It's Worth" is Stephen Stills with his ear to the street, and Buffalo Springfield cut it on December 5, 1966. It's a folk rock warning shot, cool and ominous rather than angry, Stills singing lead over the chime of his and Richie Furay's acoustic guitars while Neil Young's electric guitar pings like a bell tolling in the distance. Bruce Palmer's bass and Dewey Martin's drums keep it at a watchful, unhurried walk.

Stills wrote it alone, and the title was tacked on after the song was finished; it isn't in the lyric at all. It climbed to no. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the spring of 1967, won a spot on the March 1967 second pressing of the band's first album, and came to stand for a whole era of young people squaring off against police at anti-war protests. Rolling Stone ranked it number 63 among the greatest songs of all time in 2004.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.