01 - For What It's Worth
02 - Go And Say Goodbye
03 - Sit Down I Think I Love You
04 - Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing
05 - Hot Dusty Roads
06 - Everybody's Wrong
Before there were supergroups, there was Buffalo Springfield. That from the group came Stephen Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay—three musicians whose distinct personalities transcended the group soon after ‘For What It’s Worth’ was recorded and released in response to the Sunset Strip riots of the fall of 1966—certainly creates that impression. Only Furay would continue to make music within the group concept after Buffalo Springfield disintegrated in the spring of 1968. When Stills and Young would work together afterwards, it would be as a collective, most often in the on-again, off-again partnership of (David) Crosby, Stills, (Graham) Nash & Young.
Their debut release, which hit stores at the tail end of 1966 and was titled simply Buffalo Springfield, remains an audacious and assured introduction. One reason is that the group’s fusion of folk with rock, along with the occasional country flourish, was one achieved without an overt debt to Bob Dylan. Another is that the album consists of all original material—seven of the songs written by Stills, the other five by Young.
Most of them are fueled by the vocal blend of Stills and Furay. It’s a tight harmony based on how their voices merged together rather than how they complemented each other. ‘Go and Say Goodbye,’ which opens the album, is a prime example of its potency. Written by Stills, the song is one of several on the LP that takes a mature, clear-headed view of romance. Here, it is in the insistence to man up and to do the right thing in ending a relationship. As Stills and Furay proclaim, “brother, you know you can’t run away and hide / is it you don’t want to see her cry / is that way you won’t go and say goodbye.” The song’s hopped-up country beat declares Stills’ allegiance with the nascent move towards country-rock, moving in the same direction as Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, another progenitor of country-rock.
Stills’ ‘Hot Dusty Roads,’ laid-back and carefree, is refreshing in its rejection of artifice. Its opening lines are particularly memorable: “I don’t tell no tales about no hot dusty roads / I’m a city boy and I stay at home.” He sings with a refined sense of soul; a little bit sly and a little bit seductive. A song like this was one side of Buffalo Springfield at the beginning—unhurried, keen to explore the touches of pop craft that were beyond run of the mill. On ‘Hot Dusty Roads,’ it was in the contrast of the languidness of its A section with the switch to the top of the beat on the bridge.
Young’s ‘Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing,’ one of three compositions of his on the album on which Furay sang lead, ping-pongs from an aching country shuffle in 2/4 to a whirling waltz before returning to the shuffle with Young’s harmonica adding to the song’s deep and profound sadness. From: https://www.listeningsessions.ca/p/buffalo-springfield-the-beginning
