For What It's Worth

Buffalo Springfield recorded it on December 5, 1966, at Columbia Studios in Hollywood, and Atco released it as a single that month. It peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 in spring 1967 and was added as the opening track to the March 1967 second pressing of their debut album. Stills said he saw police and crowds at a street protest over the Sunset Strip curfew and thought America was in great danger. He told the Los Angeles Times he went home to Topanga and wrote the song in about 15 minutes.

The title phrase appears nowhere in the lyrics. Stills sang lead and played lead guitar, Neil Young added the guitar harmonics, Richie Furay played rhythm guitar, Bruce Palmer bass and Dewey Martin drums. Rolling Stone's David Browne pointed to Martin's snare drum and Young's two-note guitar part in the verse. The recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2000, and Rolling Stone placed the song at No. 63 on its 2004 list of the 500 Greatest Songs.

Stills has pointed out that many people link it to the Kent State shootings, though it predates them by more than three years. At Buffalo Springfield's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1997 it was played in an all-star version with Tom Petty. In 2020 Billy Porter sang it at the Democratic National Convention with Stills on guitar, and on January 30, 2025, Stills and Mike Campbell joined Dawes for it at the FireAid concert. On the 1973 Manassas tour it was played in a segment with "49 Bye-Byes".