#4 For What It’s Worth – Buffalo Springfield 1966
Given what’s been going since January 20, 2017, I thought I’d post this song today. Many people think it is an antiwar (Vietnam) song, or a song written in protest of the National Guard shootings at Kent State (although that took place four years later in 1970), but according to the songwriter, Stephen Stills, it was written because of a 10 p.m. curfew and general harassment of young people going to clubs and hanging out on Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. (See The Sunset Strip Curfew Riots or “hippie riots.”) Buffalo Springfield (Stephen Stills, Richie Furay, and Neil Young most prominently) performed in clubs there and had become the house band at Whiskey A Go Go at the time. Several protests resulted in clashes with the police, most notably on November 12, 1966, resulting in 1,000 protesters arrested, including Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda.The third verse is --
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
Regardless of the background of the song’s composition, it became a theme song for the counterculture, who at least thought “You step out of line, the man come and take you away.” It represented for me and many of my peers the awareness that our generation was working on change and the frustration that it engendered:
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
A perfect micro version of all that was happening was the relationship I had with my father at the time. Between being divorced and having to travel in support of his new business, my sister and I had access to a lot of freedom at a time when we probably weren’t quite prepared for that responsibility. However, once I went away to college, I embraced that independence, and my father seemed unwilling to give up control. “Paranoia strikes deep.”
I must say that sometime in the 80s or early 90s when my youngest announced that this was one of his favorite songs, I felt that my work had been done. I wanted my children to question authority (perhaps not mine, so much) and not accept the status quo. Jeremy has a bit of poet in his soul and appreciates an enchanting turn of phrase or a good lyric. He knows what these words mean:
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Spotify: "For What It's Worth" -- Buffalo Springfield
#5 – When You Walk in the Room – The Searchers 1964
The previous tune is kind of a downer, so I thought we’d go back to innocent romance (or is it just hormones?) with this Searchers song. For those youngsters out there, you may not know The Searchers, part of the Merseybeat contingent of the British Invasion in the 1960s. Other Merseybeat bands, perhaps of greater fame, were Gerry and the Pacemakers and the Hollies. I discovered The Searchers after The Beatles and The Dave Clark Five (from a London suburb, the attraction being another favorite drummer) with their initial American offering, “Needles and Pins,” included on the American version of their Meet the Searchers album.
Both “When You Walk in the Room” and “Needles and Pins” were written and previously recorded by Jackie DeShannon in 1963. The group suffered somewhat from an ever-changing line up, often charting better in the UK than in the US. The only member to continue from inception to their farewell performance in 2019 was Mike Pender (originally Mike Prendergast), who formed a separate group, “Mike Pender’s Searcher,” in 1985, which began with a permanent lineup but eventually was made up of musicians hired when necessary.
The song, “When You Walk in the Room,” with its bass intro and chiming guitar, speaks of someone in the throes of love, becoming most enraptured when the object of love walks in the room. Yet he is unable to tell her how he feels.
I close my eyes for a second and pretend it's me you want
Meanwhile I try to act so nonchalant
I see a summer's night with a magic moon
Every time that you walk in the room
Maybe it's a dream come true
Walking right alongside of you
Wish I could tell you how much I care
But I only have the nerve to stare
If that isn’t teenage love, I don’t know what is. However, finding love late in life, I have to say the song still speaks to me. The Spotify link below is a link to the track on the Pye Records Anthology 1963-1967, and you’ll find all The Searchers “biggies” here.
Do you know this song? Is there another song that spoke to your teen (or later) feelings for another?
Comments