Rush - For What It's Worth (Buffalo Springfield cover)

Track 3 from "Feedback", an E.P. of cover songs released by Rush on June 29, 2004.

This song was originally recorded 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".
It was written by band member Stephen Stills, who would go on to form Crosby, Stills and Nash (Neil Young was also a member, and would occasionally join C,S and N as well).

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?"

Stills said in an interview that the name of the song came about when he presented it to the record company executive Ahmet Ertegun who signed the Buffalo Springfield to the Atlantic Records owned ATCO label. He said: "I have this song here, for what it's worth, if you want it." Another producer, Charlie Greene, claims that Stills first said the above sentence to him, but credits Ahmet Ertegun with subtitling the single "Stop, Hey What's That Sound" so that the song would be more easily recognized.

In 2006, when interviewed on Tom Kent's radio show "Into the '70s", Stephen Stills pointed out that many people think "For What It's Worth" is about the Kent State Shootings (1970), despite predating that event by four years.

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Music

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