100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #23 Buffalo Springfield – For What It’s Worth

Released: 1966

Traffic jams play their part in American culture, and none more so than in Los Angeles, a city where getting round on foot is practially impossible. For Buffalo Springfield they were part of an origin story which is about of the time as you could get; Canadian Neil Young was travelling in a hearse looking for Stephen Stills, and miraculously the latter pulled up behind the former one day on Sunset Boulevard.

The pair would go on to form two-fifths of a band which became synonymous with the hippie era, although their combined talents were such that they flirted authentically with soul, jazz, Latin and blues. Intra-band relationships were also combustible, with Stills and Young the main protagonists against a backdrop of drug busts and the disappproval of straight society.

It was these bystanders, the traffic jams caused by youthful hedonists on the Strip and the violent response of the authorities which were the bones of For What It’s Worth. Written by Stills, it’s slightly odd groove meant for a pop song it lacked convention, but in a time of protest and with a chorus that was a peacenik rallying cry the moment proved right. The band would disintegrate eighteen months later, their mode of transport away from the scene was not however recorded.