For What It’s Worth: Background

The piece was written by Stephen Stills and released by Buffalo Springfield as a single in 1967. It peaked at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 2004, it was #63 on Rolling Stone’s list of all-time greatest rock songs. It has come to symbolize worldwide turbulence and confrontational feelings arising from events during the 1960s (particularly the Vietnam War), but Stills reportedly wrote the song for a narrower reason: 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. The song’s title appears nowhere in the lyrics. Stills said in an interview that the name came about when he presented it to the record company executive: “I have this song here, for what it’s worth, if you want it.”—Wikipedia

Neil says in the liner notes to the Feedback album that Alex played the piece in his first band, The Projection.

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