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Stephen Stills and Billy Porter: 2020 and 1967

By Jeralyn, Section Elections 2020
Posted on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 07:29:00 AM EST
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2020 at the DNC:

1967: With the Buffalo Springfield

Stephen Stills explains to Variety how this came about. As to how times have changed, or not, he says:

Asked how the political climate today compares to the one that inspired the song, Stills says, “The swamp is just as deep and the mendacity and hipocrisy is too — although there’s a lot more on the line now....“I think this election has certainly brought everybody to the party,” he concludes, “and I’m glad to see it.”

To those of you who remember the song from the 60's, which version resonates more with you now?

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    Stephen Stills and Billy Porter: 2020 and 1967 | 13 comments (13 topical)

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    Okay, the Porter version... (5.00 / 1) (#1)
    by unitron on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 03:41:45 AM EST
    ...was interesting, but not enough that I'm going to buy the 45 the way I did the original version.

    : - )

    That particular clip of the '67 version was interesting because the mix was so far off compared to what made it on air and on vinyl, and of course for seeing those guys when they were so young, which they didn't look to me at the time, since I was only a teen.

    Steven Stills borrowed $1,000 from me (5.00 / 5) (#2)
    by fishcamp on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 07:58:51 AM EST
    at a craps table at Lake Tahoe when we were filming a John Denver celebrity ski race for ABC Sports, and never paid me back.  I saw him in Aspen years later and he pretended he didn't remember that.  So I'm going with Buffalo Springfield since it's way better anyway.

    We were just listening to Buffalo Springfield's (5.00 / 2) (#3)
    by Peter G on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 10:15:23 AM EST
    first album in the car during a long drive the other day. This is a beautiful song, but I have to say I remain puzzled by some of the lyrics: "Nobody's right if everybody's wrong" and "Singing songs and carrying signs; mostly say 'hooray for our side'." Those always seemed to smack of both-siderism in a way I never understood or appreciated, either in the original context of Berkeley in the '60s or in the Billy Porter effort to apply it to today's BLM protests.

    Yeah, that actually always bothered npme (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by Towanda on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 11:27:39 AM EST
    about the song, much as I loved it.

    Thanks for the full clip posted here, zjeralyn, as every channel cut it off last night.

    Parent

    Actually (none / 0) (#9)
    by FlJoe on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 12:25:18 PM EST
    it was not about a war or civil rights protest, but a group of young people fighting for their right to party.

    Parent
    Not quite (none / 0) (#10)
    by Jeralyn on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 01:36:29 PM EST
    According to Stills in the recent interview with Variety (link in my p ost):

    While the song was first inspired by the November 1966 riots on Sunset Strip in Hollywood -- which started when police began enforcing a decades-old 10 p.m. curfew for people under the age of 18 -- it quickly became an anthem for the counterculture in the late 1960s and beyond.


    Parent
    Of (5.00 / 1) (#12)
    by FlJoe on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 09:55:42 PM EST
    course we adopted it, and brushed off the ambiguities as poetic license, close enough for rock and roll for sure.


    Parent
    Definitely (5.00 / 3) (#6)
    by Zorba on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 11:23:51 AM EST
    Buffalo Springfield.
    I was in college at the time.  (Okay, yes,  I'm old.)

    Yes. I like Porter's version (5.00 / 1) (#11)
    by Towanda on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 02:04:59 PM EST
    for some reasons, -- not his over-the-top moves -- but it doesn't move me as the original did and still does.

    Remember the hilarious performance on the Smothers Brothers show?

    Parent

    There are a lot of covers (none / 0) (#4)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 10:23:48 AM EST
    For this.  Almost as many as Hallelujah.

    I think this one is under appreciated

    No (5.00 / 1) (#5)
    by Zorba on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 11:22:00 AM EST
    Not under appreciated- at least not as far as I'm concerned.
    I don't care for it.

    Parent
    Music (none / 0) (#8)
    by CaptHowdy on Tue Aug 18, 2020 at 11:37:08 AM EST
    Is like that

    Parent
    Stills and Buffalo Springfield (none / 0) (#13)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Wed Aug 19, 2020 at 12:45:43 PM EST
    by a very long shot

    Stephen Stills and Billy Porter: 2020 and 1967 | 13 comments (13 topical)

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