Why do people think "For What It's Worth" was a protest song?

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It's about the riot that surrounded the closing of the Pandora's Box on the Sunset Strip. and apparently it's a bit of a ripoff of a couple of Moby Grape tunes. Do people just assume 'spooky + sixties = must be about Nam'?

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 13:25 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it was about Nam because of the lyrics...

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 13:28 (twenty-three years ago)

But with this new context applied, I can totally see how that would have been the intent of the lyrics.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Thursday, 3 April 2003 13:28 (twenty-three years ago)

This only works if songs actually have to mean something specifically. Which they don't.

It also only works if you don't think that lyrics about "the man with the gun over there" and "what a field day for the heat" are NOT protest lyrics, which they are. Did ALL 1960s "protest" songs have to be about Vietnam?

― Neudonym, Thursday, 3 April 2003 13:48 (twenty-three years ago)

okay, to clarify, why do people think it's an anti-war protest song? same thing with "revolution" by the beatles

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 13:51 (twenty-three years ago)

because people are idiots, duh? shame on you for not taking that as a given.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:01 (twenty-three years ago)

1. people find the protest music they want/need, even when it's not necessarily what they think it is

2. Buff. Springfield intentionally dressed this domestic-fascism song up as something that could double as a war-protest song

3. oh and stop reading Mickey Kaus, he's a asshole

― Neudonym, Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:04 (twenty-three years ago)

But James, how many 'Nam flicks/specials have used it? (and wasn't Tom Berenger in 'Nam?)

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:09 (twenty-three years ago)

Good point about "Revolution," which is actually an anti-protest song, or an I'm-gonna-distance-myself-from-that-crowd move (which made it kind of amusing when people got so upset about its use in a Nike ad). As is "Street Fighting Man," though you could argue that both of these sound like "protest" music, whatever that means. (In his first book, Greil Marcus expounds at great length on both of these but it's been years since I've read that piece, and I can't reference it now.)

― s woods, Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:18 (twenty-three years ago)

well, this opens up the whole intention vs. reception debate.

I mean, a song can become about something that had nothing to do with its inception, eg Helter Skelter (not to tread to much on ye olde sixties trayle)

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:22 (twenty-three years ago)

wait - "Fortunate Son" is a good protest song! "Masters of War" also, I guess! the reason this came up was a friend was asking the old 'where are today's great protest songs?' (with the understanding 'anti-war') and I asked 'where were the sixties?' and he said 'for what it's worth' and 'revolution' and I said 'nuh-uh! nuh-uh!', though I couldn't remember specifically what it was actually about so I had to look in shakey where I got to re-remember that the ONE buffalo springfield song everybody knows coulda been the two moby grape songs everybody knows but neil young came out with what I like about it anyways (the geetar, duh). it is in just about every nam movie (not as much as 'fortunate son' or even 'white rabbit' but slightly more than martha reeves, who always there for strictly period detail - no one thinks 'dancing in the streets''s about vietnam, though it could be by neudonym's equation). I could care less bout 'the movement makes do with whats it can', I'm thinking more about the songs themselves. my point was 'protest songs=dud, and what are remembered as great (anti-war) protest songs weren't actually such, but remembering 'fortunate son' is causing rethink. was 'street fighting man' actually an attempt at distancing? cuz to me it's always sounded like mick using 'the movement' as another way to paint himself as a badboy.

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:24 (twenty-three years ago)

This isn't a good piece at all, but I wrote an article about "Ohio," "For What It's Worth," "Let's Roll" and "Freedom" a year or so ago. If you wanna take a look (ya don't), click here.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

True what Horace says, and "Dancing in the Street" apparently WAS a protest anthem of sorts--at the Watts riots.

― s woods, Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:30 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, the thing about 'for what it's worth' I like also, that seems so odd for something stephen stills derived, is how it's sorta objective, how it just paints a picture instead of preaches or beats you over the head with whatever the songwriter's 'trying to say', the most pointed line seems to me to be 'mostly say hooray for our side', which seems almost as good an anti-protestor barb as anything in 'revolution'. also, and I think this is why I think it's a good song but not a protest song, and a good song because it's not a protest song, is did people at the marches shout or sing 'for what it's worth'? it doesn't seem to lend itself to that use the way eg. the 'fixin to die' rag (a much worse song, but much more of a protest song) did.

in terms of a rally the troops (ha!) type anthem, 'dancing in the streets' does trump anything else here. it certainly seems more pertinent to the current protests - especially with the global shoutouts - than joan baez.

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:39 (twenty-three years ago)

yancey totally beats me to the punch in his piece, and maybe just anything that fits the mood of whatever current historic whatevah becomes ABOUT said current historic whatevah, the way for some people lots of yankee hotel foxtrot is about 9/11 even though of course it couldn't ACTUALLY be about 9/11 of course of course. or the way jennifer capriati had 'bombs over baghdad' played before one of her matches to show her support for the troops (I kid you not). the soundtrack of our lives, etc.

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:44 (twenty-three years ago)

to trivialise this thread incredibly: it's the same way how prince apparently had some of the songs for the batman soundtrack lying around before hand already, but when he put them on the batman soundtrack they became about batman, even though nothing in the lyrics (beyond prince assigning them to specific characters) neccesitates such.

(maybe ignore this post)

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:46 (twenty-three years ago)

fuck, that was Prince's last GREAT album. I miss good Prince.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Thursday, 3 April 2003 14:50 (twenty-three years ago)

was 'street fighting man' actually an attempt at distancing? cuz to me it's always sounded like mick using 'the movement' as another way to paint himself as a badboy.

Good question. It feels to me like he's watching it all from a different (jaded?) vantage point or something--"everywhere I hear the sound..." "'cause where I live the game they play..." Even in the last verse, when he says "My name is called disturbance," he sounds really mocking or contemptuous in his tone of voice, but maybe that's just me.

― s woods, Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I really like the last two paragraphs in Yancey's piece.

― s woods, Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:06 (twenty-three years ago)

to me it's always come off as somewhat straightforward anthem attempt, esp. with those drums, but I can remember an interview from that big fat rolling stone twentieth anniversary issue where he was fairly dismissive and at least semi-contemptous looking back at the protestors, so it certainly could've been the intent of the song, and considering that one way to figure out stone's moves at this time is to look and see what beatles move they were aping/reacting to - did 'revolution' come out before 'street fighting man'? (both 68, and I know 'revolution's hey jude b-side so that summer 68, but when did beggar's banquet come out?)

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:15 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm probably going to be combing two hundred different incorrect anecdotes, but wasn't "SFM" written after Keith & Mick hear/see the MC5's set at the Chicago Democratic Convention riots? I definitely hear disdain in the song, and I don't think Mick ever took war protest or any of those movements all that seriously (I'm basing a lot of this on what Stanley Booth (who needs a RC.com interview, Scott! (i'll gladly do it...) wrote in True Adventures of the Rolling Stones) -- it was just another scene for the Stones to dip into, and it was a good fit for their rebel poses. All of that said, it comes off perfectly as a protest song, which gets back to what Horace said a while ago, and something that ILM is firmly behind: That intentions mean jack shit.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:20 (twenty-three years ago)

Wow that was a bad post. It should say, "Keith & Mick heard/saw the MC5's Democratic Convention set, and I hear disdain for the MC5 and the other 'power to the people' type acts..."

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Then there was Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers." They claimed it was about a Volunteers of America truck, didn't they?

― mike a (mike a), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:24 (twenty-three years ago)

really? cuz if so that's hilarious

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:25 (twenty-three years ago)

I definitely remember Kantner or Balin explaining it away as such in an interview, can't place the source. I kind of imagine one of them seeing a truck, and getting a great idea to write a song that SOUNDS like an antiwar song, but...isn't.

― mike a (mike a), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:27 (twenty-three years ago)

haha!

ok, I really really need to read that stanley booth book finally, and now I'm completely convinced 'Street Fighting Man's an anti-protest song, though yeah, intentions=who cares

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I like FWIW - FWIW - but I think the worst aspect of it is its haughtily uninvolved attitude towards protest.

― the pinefox, Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:29 (twenty-three years ago)

I do think it's interesting that the two biggest bands of the time (Beatles/Stones) both had hit songs expressing disdain for revolutionary politics. And couldn't an argument be made that "Give Peace a Chance" was an effort to cut through the era's buzzwords? I've never heard it specifically as the protest song it's become.

― mike a (mike a), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:31 (twenty-three years ago)

the stanley booth book is the best thing i've ever read. in fact, i have a goal to drive down yr way, james, to go talk to him. the phrase "writing hero" comes to mind...

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:35 (twenty-three years ago)

The Booth book is amazing (we interviewed him Yancey!). That 1968 or '69 Marcus essay I mentioned is really good on all this, too--it's from (the otherwise mostly dated) Rock 'n' Roll Will Stand. Wish I had it here at work so I could quote a relevant passage or something.

― s woods, Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:35 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh shit, Scott! I didn't realize. I'll go look now. I'm thinking I might pitch the Oxford American on a piece about him. Apparently he's impossible to find. A friend of mine is a friend of Jim Dickinson's, and he asked Jim for me where Stanley was. He said he had no idea, that Stanley would just disappear for a year without warning... < 12 year old girl voice > sigh! < /12 year old girl voice >

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, somewhat, but "give peace a chance" seems to me to be an anti-anti-protest song, by answering the critics and cutting through the bullshit (ma-an) to the message ie. don't let the different tactics, etc. distract you, all we are saying is (ba-dum-dum) give peace a chance. of the lennon sloganeering songs (which don't include 'imagine', which doesn't really work as a chant), I like it alot better than any of the 'sometime in nyc' stuff, alot wittier frinstance.

where the hell is stanley booth near my way?!!!

― James Blount (James Blount), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:38 (twenty-three years ago)

Stanley grew up in Waycross, and still lives somewhere in the area...

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 15:40 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't see "Revolution" as "anti-protest" or anything of the sort. It was a criticism of those protest/leftist elements who chose to idolize authoritarians like Mao.

That's standard left-wing infighting since the late 19th century (Marxists v. libertarian socialists, then in the US the Debs-led democratic socialists v. the Bolsheviks and so on all the way up to the goings on in Paris in May '68).

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Thursday, 3 April 2003 17:41 (twenty-three years ago)

is the Oxford American still around? was under the impression it closed, then got revived, then never saw it again

― M Matos (M Matos), Thursday, 3 April 2003 18:14 (twenty-three years ago)

The Oxford American relaunched in January. There have been two issues since then. You can easily get it in Barnes & Noble...

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Thursday, 3 April 2003 18:34 (twenty-three years ago)

"There's something happening here/what it is ain't exactly clear" -- yeah the song is about unrest, confusion, disillusionment, awakening, restiveness, ultimately mourning the dispersal of passion.

It works coz it's about a failed promise -- any of the 60s docus that use it tend to underline a tragic edge to the proceedings. That's what makes it powerful I think, moreso than any of the overt protest of tune-in/turn-on stuff -- that from the start it already anticipated the verdict of history.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 01:59 (twenty-three years ago)

well said

― James Blount (James Blount), Friday, 4 April 2003 02:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I finally figured out the acronym FWIW!

― s woods, Friday, 4 April 2003 03:34 (twenty-three years ago)

Best use I ever saw was in a documentary about buckminster fuller. Playing the song while all these stoner burnouts are running around in field building tremendous DOMES. They want a better society and they're running around with no better idea than building big fucking DOMES. Motherfuck.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 03:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Ornette Coleman was way into Fuller. He's kind of a hippy too though. Ornette Coleman and John Lennon are kind of the same person.

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Friday, 4 April 2003 05:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I remember running around school the next day yelling DOMES at all my friends.

For some reason we had enuf of a mindmeld at the time that they'd all seem the same documentary and started to yell it back.

jm do you recall this at all?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Friday, 4 April 2003 17:16 (twenty-three years ago)

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