Buffalo Springfield - for what it's worth - Lyrics Meaning

An instantly recognized hit song released as a single in January 1967 ranked at #63 by Rolling stones greatest as 500 greatest hits of all time, what many may call a hippy classic used in many protests throughout the 60's it has been seen as a song about peace, ironically it's played in almost every Vietnam movie in the mid '60's.

When Stephen stills (singer/songwriter) wrote the song before he showed it to the rest of the band he said, "Here is something I wrote, for what it's worth." This is where the songs name originated.

The inspiration was partly a reaction to the Sunset Strip riots in the mid '60's in which young people were being roughed up by the L.A. police ("A man with a gun over there")

The song was quickly used as a theme for protests and the action against the war in Vietnam, mistakenly taken as an anti-war song as it has many provocative lyrics such as "A thousand people in the street

Singing songs and carrying signs" the song is still widely used today in demonstration's and protests to this day making it a classic hit of the 60's.