“For What It’s Worth” was written by Stephen Stills in late 1966 after witnessing the unrest surrounding the Sunset Strip curfew riots in Los Angeles, where clashes had broken out between young protesters and police over new restrictions on nightlife around clubs such as Pandora’s Box. Released as a single in December 1966, the song quickly became Buffalo Springfield’s breakthrough hit reaching #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1967.
Although it is often remembered today as a Vietnam-era protest anthem, the song was not originally written about the war. Its tense, understated lyrics instead captured the atmosphere of confusion, suspicion and generational conflict in America at the time, which is precisely why it later came to symbolize the wider turbulence of the late 1960s.
