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Keeping up with Michelle Obama isn’t an easy task, but the duo of Billy Porter and Stephen Stills stepped up with a virtual performance of “For What It’s Worth” at the opening night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
While Stills first wrote and sang the song – which is perhaps best known by its subtitle, “Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound?” – as a member of Buffalo Springfield in 1967 he has become a hymn of protest from generation to generation for times when the world seems particularly upside down, for political or other reasons. Between the Trump presidency, the coronavirus, and Black Lives Matter, there have been plenty of potential uses for the song in recent months, and Porter spoke about it earlier this year.
“Billy did such a good cover of the song and I was [originally] will sing with him on this one for the DNC, ”says Stills Variety of Monday night’s performance (which was pre-recorded). “But then I decided ‘Nah, this is Billy’s record, so let him fly with it.” Also, my wifi is unreliable, ”he laughs,“ so I played guitar and sang. “
More seriously, he continues, “Billy and I were talking about this for the first time on the day George Floyd died – he was throwing furniture in his apartment, he was so angry.
While the song was first inspired by the November 1966 riots on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip – which began when police began imposing a 22-hour curfew on people under the age of 18 – it’s quickly became a hymn for the counterculture in the late 1960s and beyond.
“Like a lot of social commentaries, it was pretty spontaneous,” recalls Stills, who was 21 when he wrote the song. “I arrived on Laurel Canyon and saw that [demonstration], and a whole bunch of related points for me, as to the resistance there was to the war and other things. Sam Yorty, the mayor [of Los Angeles at the time], was afraid it was an anti-war riot, and he sent the police into battle, and I just reacted. The song took about as long to write as it did to sit down and write it, because I had something bubbling up anyway.
“It took a little [spontaneous]He continues, “because if you try too hard it becomes pontificant, you know?” That’s why I’m careful not to put more than a few protest songs on my albums – I never liked that term, by the way, because then you end up writing, like, edits on limericks, and it’s getting hackneyed. You have to wait until something really hits you. “
According to caption, the song’s title came after Stills introduced the song to band and Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, saying, “Here’s a new song, for what it’s worth,” but Stills says. that he “cannot confirm this account.”
Although he says he’s always been very attached to the song, he didn’t realize how special it was “until we recorded it and they decided to pull one of my other songs on the album and replace it with this one ”- after the song was recorded, Atlantic quickly re-released Buffalo Springfield’s debut album to include it – and he adds with a laugh,“ so everyone. world in the room wanted a piece of the edition!
When asked how the current political climate compares to the one that inspired the song, Stills says, “The swamp is just as deep and the lie and the hipocrisy are too – although there is much more to it. game now.
“I think this election has certainly brought everyone to the party,” he concludes, “and I’m happy to see it.”
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