Bill Dagg❌ (@Fuzzbert)

"For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey What's That Sound)" is a song written by Stephen Stills, first recorded by Buffalo Springfield on December 5, 1966, and released as a single on Atco Records in December 1966; it peaked at no. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the spring of 1967. The song is often associated with the Vietnam War because students, "flower children," and other young people often clashed with police at anti-war protests and other demonstrations during the counterculture era. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the song at number 63 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. #music https://youtu.be/YVhn1edWaDA Although "For What It's Worth" is often considered an anti-war song, Stephen Stills was inspired to write the song because of the Sunset Strip curfew riots in Los Angeles in November 1966, a series of early counterculture-era clashes that took place between police and young people on the Sunset Strip in Hollywood, California, the same year Buffalo Springfield had become the house band at the Whisky a Go Go nightclub. Local residents and businesses had become annoyed by how crowds of young people going to clubs and music venues along the Strip had caused late-night traffic congestion. In response, they lobbied Los Angeles County to pass local ordinances stopping loitering and enforced a strict curfew on the Strip after 10 p.m. The young music fans, however, felt the new laws infringed upon their civil rights. On Saturday, November 12, 1966, fliers were distributed on the Sunset Strip inviting people to join demonstrations later that day. Several of Los Angeles's rock radio stations also announced a rally outside the Pandora's Box club on the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights. That evening, as many as 1,000 young demonstrators, including future celebrities such as Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda (who was handcuffed by police), gathered to protest against the curfew's enforcement. Although the rallies began peacefully, trouble eventually broke out. The unrest continued the next night, and periodically throughout the rest of November and December, forcing some clubs to shut down within weeks. It was against the background of these civil disturbances that Stills recorded "For What It's Worth" on December 5, 1966. The name of the song came about when Stills presented it to the record company. Stills said: "I have this song here, for what it's worth, if you want it." A record company executive added the parenthetical subtitle "Stop, Hey What's That Sound" so that the song would be more easily recognized. An all-star version of "For What It's Worth", with Tom Petty and others, was played at Buffalo Springfield's induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. The song is a staple of period piece films about 1960s America and the Vietnam War, such as Forrest Gump, and is often used as a common shorthand to quickly establish the atmosphere of the 1960s counterculture movement and protests. The song appears in the intro to the 2005 film Lord of War, showing the lifecycle of a rifle cartridge, from manufacture to firing. In 2000, the 1966 recording of "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield on ATCO Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In June 2026, CBS News included the song in its list of the 250 essential American songs of the past 250 years.