For What it's Worth
 

Does anybody know who this was written about? I know it was written while on tour with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but who is she refering to????

Wasn't it about Russ Kunkel?

I believe it was written about riding on a bus during the Street Angel tour so it wasn't with Petty.As far as I know that is the only time she has toured solo on a bus.

I think it was written after Street Angel, when she came out of rehab for Klonopin. I think it was written in 1995?

She did come out of rehab before the release of Street Angel in 1994 ..that is why the subsequent tour was her best in years..glad I caught it.

Oh, I didn't know that. It makes more sense now. Thanks.

You're very welcome!

Whoever it was written for, it is to my ears probably the worst thing she has ever recorded.

Who ever she wrote it for.I love this tune.

Even worse than It's A Hard Game to Play:shrug:..harsh.

I like that tune too.

I like it as well. It's different- in a good way!

No. As far as we know, Stevie was referring to Dallas Taylor, a drug interventionist and who was her drug counselor at Daniel Freeman Hospital. He was the drummer for Crosby, Stills and Nash and hence the title.

We had a pretty heavy debate about this song last year. :)

IMO it's one of the most beautiful songs she has done in 15 years. Love it!

lindsey buckingham.

I like quite a few aspects of the song: it's a very literal, folk, chronological recounting/storytelling type song which Stevie really hasn't written before. It's just so raw, unguarded, and honest. Some many of Stevie's songs are buried in heavy handed production & veiled lyrics. For What It's Worth is refreshingly blunt.

The thing I really don't care for about the song are the baritone, double harmonies implemented in the chorus. It reminds me of the bad aspects of the Street Angel album. Everyone knows I'm a huge fan of Street Angel, but it certainly has it's very unfortunate moments for which it rightly earns it's lackluster reputation (it also oddly contains some of Stevie's best rock songs all lumped into one work).

To me, For What It's Worth is a very telling & fascinating album track. But it was an absolutely disastrous choice for a single.

I believe it was written about Russ Kunkel. Stevie said so in some interview.

Nope. She said drummer and everyone pounced on it being Kunkel. Not him. :)



:lol::lol::lol:

Love it!

tear jerker at the end. Love the video, very traveling wilburys.

Can imagine if Stevie could have been on the Traveling Wilburys first cd. Wow I would have loved that!

I agree about the flat, droning vocals on the chorus. Otherwise the song is fine. It works better than Secret Love as opening track.
I think it would have made a pretty decent single if the vocal were better. As it is, it's less disastrous than Every Day or Two Kinds of Love.

- Jake

It was written about coming out of rehab and going on the SA tour, but I believe the song was actually written pretty recently. She talked about the track being on a CD Mike Campbell gave her and her niece Jessica being there when she wrote it.

Thats why I love Stevie's songwriting.She's a storyteller.I love music with a story behind it.Thats one reason I enjoy country music so much.Tired of the ole rock and roll repetitive lyrics.

I understand how you feel. It takes getting used to. The song is almost too simple, however, I like it. It's just a little slice of life song. However, I don't understand why this was single or put up front on the album. It's stops momentum. It's not a song that would make people run out and buy an album. They are more likely to just say to themselves "I could of written that," and move on.

I love the video to this song. It's one of the best videos she has ever done. The imagery of her in the desert is great.

It's the totally bass monotone bagpipe-drone vocals and melody, and the sleepy draggy arrangement that just kill it for me. It is deadly - sounds like she is back on klonopin or has fallen down a well head-first.

There is not one redeeming aspect of this song. Not one.

Great song and a beautiful video. I much prefer it to Secret Love.

It does sound like she is not trying, she just sorta sings it and the lyrics are not completely worked out, but you can tell its about something

I think this song needed some type of change up. Its just too straightforward, not very sophisticated

Don't remember Jessica being there.

She wrote it in Hawaii in 2010 when they were working on IYD. Dave had gone to London and was stuck there due to the planes being grounded because of an ashcloud from the volcano eruption in Iceland. So, she had a break and decided to go to Hawaii. She said she watched a documentary on hobos riding the rails and how it reminded her of her grandfather. She was inspired, but they had sent back all the recording equipment the day before so they used a camera.

Right, he's referring to the tape with all instrumentals that Mike gave to Stevie. It had the instrumental of FWIW, aka, just the music.

Yeah, I understand that. Just never read/heard anything about Jessica being there when she wrote it. :)

She said she wrote it on an airplane, didn't she?

And that Jessica was there for take two, the second time she played it, and the filmed it with a Cybershot or something. Maybe that was Moonlight.

I will have to find the interview. I know Moonlight was recorded with a camera. But I swear somewhere she said she wrote FWIW in like 5 minutes and it was so great because her niece was there and got to see what the song writing process was like or something that effect.

Okay found the quote! Looks like it was shot on a camera too! Wouldn't it be awesome if the clip of her writing this made it into the documentary? I would die!

"They are, because anybody who knows me knows that’s how I write. I had a great experience when I was writing “For What It’s Worth.” I had gone to Hawaii for two weeks and my niece Jessi, who’s 19, came over, and I had some tracks from Mike and I had listened to them a couple months before didn’t hear anything, but I said, “I’m gonna revisit those tracks.” And there were, like, 10 tracks, and I hit track seven and I went, “oh my …” and I just started—I didn’t even have a formal poem—which doesn’t often happen. There’s this little train bell at the beginning and I started thinking about my granddad and how my grandfather rode the rails in the ‘40s and was a songwriter and played gigs all over the United States. And I just started singing along, and I was running around the room at the same time looking for paper and pencil and yelling at my assistant to get some kind of recording device. And all we have is a camera, so we immediately put the camera on video and we were able to record it. And then Jessi came in and I said, “Do you want to hear this?” I just sang it to her and at the end she said—and she’d lived with me, her parents [brother Chris and sister-in-law/backup singer Lori Nicks] have lived with me off-and-on for years—and she just said, “Oh, Aunt Stevie, that is so awesome.” Because it was the first time in the whole 19 years that she had known me that she actually saw the process and saw a brand new song happen; the second time I sang it, I sang it for her. And she was like, “How did you do that?” and I’m like, “I don’t know, Jess. It’s my little special gift from God.” That’s how I look at it."

Thanks!

I guess I just imagined the plane part. Good story.

Does anyone have the radio edit for this? I liked it better, it as punchier.

Thanks for digging that up and sharing. I had not read that one. :)

Yeah, how can we get this edit?