Californian folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield were short-lived but signicant. They recorded one of the defining protest songs of the 1960s, ‘For What It’s Worth’, and launched the careers of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay of Poco, and Jim Messina of Loggins and Messina.
Buffalo Springfield’s lineup was fluid – the temperamental Young quit and rejoined several times, while bassist Bruce Palmer was deported to Canada for drug offences. Their discography is patchy – of their three long-playing records, their first album is formative and their last album was a contract-fulfilling effort that was pieced together after the group had disbanded.
Despite their small discography, Buffalo Springfield recorded a clutch of outstanding songs. It’s worth seeking out 1967’s Buffalo Springfield Again or 1969’s compilation Retrospective. Some of Young’s work in the band is also covered on his excellent 1977 Decade compilation.
10 Best Buffalo Springfield Songs
#10 Four Days Gone
written by Stephen Stills, from Last Time Around, 1968
Buffalo Springfield’s final album was a muddled affair. The band had already broken up, and the record was pieced together from sessions from late 1967 and early 1968, with the band’s three writers working independently from each other. The songs largely feel like workmanlike leftovers, but Stills’ ‘Four Days Gone’ is an enjoyable track, stripped-down and bluesy.
#9 I Am A Child
written by Neil Young, from Last Time Around, 1968
Along with the pre-Buffalo Springfield song ‘Sugar Mountain’, ‘I Am A Child’ feels meaningful to Young. The pair open Young’s 1979 Live Rust, both reaching into his adolescence. After his epics on Buffalo Springfield Again, ‘I Am A Child’ is simply presented. According to Young’s liner notes for Decade, the only other band member present is drummer Dewey Martin. The Sunset Sound receptionist’s boyfriend is on bas.
#8 Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing
written by Neil Young, from Buffalo Springfield, 1966
‘Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing’ was Buffalo Springfield’s first single. It was sung by Richie Furay – Young wasn’t confident in his vocal ability, and the sweeter-voiced Richie Furay handles it nicely. It’s in 3/4, with a folkish lilt. The song predates Young’s Buffalo Springfield days, named for a classmate known for his indifferent singing of hymns.
#7 Mr Soul
written by Neil Young, from Buffalo Springfield Again, 1967
‘Mr Soul’ was inspired by the gnarled riff to ‘Satisfaction’ – Young told a live audience in 1968 that he wrote it in five minutes. It was Young’s way to grapple with his issues – he was struggling with fame and with epilepsy. Like ‘I Am A Child’, Young’s often revisited this tune – it turned up on his 1993 Unplugged album, and he recorded a new version for 1982’s Trans.
#6 Hung Upside Down
written by Stephen Stills, from Buffalo Springfield Again, 1967
This Buffalo Springfield track is fascinating – like a hodgepodge that feels a little taped together. Stills wrote the tune, but all three vocalists get a chance to shine. Furay sings the verses, Stills sings the lead on the chorus, while I assume Young is responsible for the frenzied soloing. It’s all held together by a cool riff.
#5 Rock ‘n Roll Woman
written by Stephen Stills, from Buffalo Springfield Again, 1967
‘Rock & Roll Woman’ marks the first pairing of David Crosby and Stephen Stills on record. Crosby co-wrote the song – Stills told Rolling Stone that it came from “jamming with David Crosby at his house. We got hung up on the F to D change in D-modal, which is mountain minor tuning. We kept playing it over and over and over again.” It was inspired by Grace Slick, and would inspire Stevie Nicks – she later told The Guardian:
“Hearing this for the first time was like seeing the future,” Nicks said. “[Sings] “And she’s coming, singing soft and low…” When I heard the lyrics, I thought: that’s me! They probably wrote it about Janis Joplin or someone like that but I was convinced it was about me.
Stevie Nicks, The Guardian
#4 For What It’s Worth
written by Stephen Stills, added to later versions of Buffalo Springfield, 1966
Stills’ ‘For What It’s Worth’ is Buffalo Springfield’s signature song. It’s ubiquitous in 1960s documentaries – as a protest song, it’s often synonymous with the Vietnam War, but it was actually written about the Sunset Strip curfew riots of 1966, where young people clashed with the police. A top-ten single, it’s probably received more airplay that the rest of the Buffalo Springfield discography combined. But it holds up well – I especially enjoy Young’s closing guitar solo.
#3 Broken Arrow
written by Neil Young, from Buffalo Springfield Again, 1967
Neil Young cuts loose on this six-minute multi-part epic. It kicks off with a pseudo-live excerpt of the album opener ‘Mr Soul’, and cycles through three verses, themed around the emptiness of fame, teenage angst, and hopelessness. Young recorded ‘Broken Arrow’ during one of his temporary absences from the band, although Furay provides backing vocals. Young reported that it took over 100 takes to capture this complex song.
#2 Bluebird
written by Stephen Stills, from Buffalo Springfield Again, 1967
Not to be outdone by Young, Stills contributed his own multi-part epic to Buffalo Springfield Again. There are three different versions – along with the album version, there’s a two-minute single version and an epic nine-minute jam. The group often closed their live sets with it, where the song could run for twenty minutes.
#1 Expecting To Fly
written by Neil Young, from Buffalo Springfield Again,1967
On hiatus from Buffalo Springfield, Neil Young recorded ‘Expecting to Fly’ with Phil Spector sideman Jack Nitzsche, with the expectation that it would appear on a solo project. It has an otherworldly beauty, with Young’s fragile and uncertain vocal perfectly suited to the song’s quiet beauty. It was a single, but no other Buffalo Springfield members appear on it – instead, Young’s backed by ace session musicians like Carol Kaye and Jim Gordon.
Do I miss or underrate your favourite Buffalo Springfield song?
READ MORE
40 Comments
Leave a Reply
About
Aphoristic Album Reviews is almost entirely written by one person. It features album reviews and blog posts across a growing spectrum of popular music.
Aphoristical
View Profile
Graham Fyfe has been writing this website since his late teens. Now in his forties, he's been obsessively listening to albums for years. He works as a web editor and plays the piano.
Related Posts:
Review Pages
Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:
Blog Posts
I add new blog posts to this website every week. Browse the archives or enjoy these random selections:
Great picks. …Again is one of my favourite Young related releases, so I’d probably pick the four you’ve selected from that one and add Mr. Soul in place of For What It’s Worth.
Hard to argue with your list. Other good ones for me are Mr. Soul, Kind Woman, I Am a Child, and Questions.
Nowadays Clancy Can’t Even Sing deserves a mention.
Yeah, definitely deserves a mention. It’s my favourite song on the original version of the debut.
Mr Soul is a keeper
I only realised recently how closely inspired it is by ‘Satisfaction’.
When I run into Neil I’ll ask him.
Could also ask him if he’s considered changing his name as he’s grown older. Neil Young doesn’t seem to fit him so well now?
That put a smile on my face. Neils the kind of guy that would probably get a kick out of that.
I feel like he’s probably heard that joke before. At least Sonic Youth broke up before they got too old.
I’ll eventually hear the album “Again” (on the 1001) – I’ll have to report back with a more educated response then!
If you like Stills and Young, there’s lots of good stuff there.
I had forgotten what a truly great track Expecting To Fly was – thanks for this.
Great list of Buffalo Springfield songs. Broken Arrow is an epic song. To me, it’s their A Day In The Life.
Yeah, that comparison makes sense – looks like The Beatles’ song was released half a year earlier, so probably inspired it.
Yes the membership was fluid, but you can see that Young and Stills were responsible for most of compositions. Not surprisingly, they ended up forming their own band after.
“Long May you run”. Apparently about their first car and/or last girlfriend
Furay wrote a decent chunk of songs as well, but, at least at this point, he wasn’t as strong a writer as Stills or Young.
Every one of these songs is a classic. No arguments here, and nothing essential missing from this top 10. I have a particular affinity for “Nowadays Clancy…” which might have to do with Furay’s vocal performance.
Cool – glad we largely agree.
Great playlist and added in spotify. The only only I can think of that you didn’t include is Questions, which I’m familiar with from CSNY.
Yeah, I could have gone with Questions with #10 really – but I like the CSNY version more, and it will be on my CSNY list.
Ooh, previews of coming attractions 🙂
I have a list already. https://albumreviews.blog/reviews/1970s-album-reviews/crosby-stills-and-nash/
Looks like Carry On is #3 though, so I misremembered.
Awesome, just read and commented at your site.
I love Bluebird and Mr Soul and that’s about it. None of their other songs were great as those ones.
When I first moved to Buffalo I looked up how Buffalo Springfield got their name figuring it was just the name of a railroad cuz railroads always used to be named after the cities they went to, but I found out it was just the name of the company that made steam rollers in Buffalo about a million years ago. I don’t know what the Springfield part is named after. Maybe they had another steamroller factory in Springfield Illinois or something, I don’t know.
Wikipedia says there was a steamroller with that name parked outside their house.
Yeah Buffalo Springfield was the name on the steamroller in front of their house. I Googled another article that says that the Buffalo steamroller company merged with the Springfield steamroller company and that’s where the Springfield part comes from. Except it was Springfield Ohio and not Springfield Illinois.
There’s a Springfield in every state, right? That’s why the Simpsons chose that name.
Wouldn’t surprise me. The only other one I know for sure is Massachusetts but I’m sure there’s more. And each and every one of them was named after Dusty Springfield. Ha ha!!!!
According to a common factoid, there’s a community called Springfield in all 50 states, but the U.S. Board on Geographic Names says that’s not true: only 34 states have a Springfield. The real champ is Riverside. Unless you live in Alaska, Hawaii, Louisiana, or Oklahoma, there’s at least one Riverside in your state.
Really? I didn’t know that. The only one I could think of is Riverside California, and I’m not even sure about that. In both New York and Buffalo I know neighborhoods called Riverside but they’re not actual names of cities, just parts of town.
Great playlist. When I hear “Mr. Soul”, I always think of the Stones’ “Satisfaction.” They might as well have been called Buffalo Springboard. Steven Stills knew Neil Young from Buffalo Springfield, which was a key factor for Neil joining CSN. In turn, this arguably led to their best album “Déjà Vu.” BTW, for some reason, I couldn’t leave this comment via the WordPress reader where it looked like comments were disabled.
Yeah, the ‘Mr Soul’ / ‘Satisfaction’ thing isn’t something I’ve thought about, but it’s pretty clear when it’s pointed out.
I’ve been playing with the comments a bit – it’s showing up on my reader feed now, but I’ll see how it’s going for other people.
When I went to see Neil for the millionth time – at a big venue in Toronto or Montreal (I don’t remember – it was some time ago), he opened with “Mr Soul”.
My friend, long time fan said “he pulled that opener out of nowhere”.
That just demonstrates the extent of his personal catalogue
It did turn up on his 1993 Unplugged album. It seems unlikely that he relates to Broken Arrow anymore, but Mr Soul is probably personal for him, just like I Am A Child and Sugar Mountain.
Broken Arrow remains my number 1 with them…looking at it now it’s so out of character for Neil. Can’t argue with this list though.
I got on here last night but when I saw my old comment I thought that I pulled up the wrong post. I must have just started to follow you around that time.
I had a post from about 5 years ago, about 5 best Buffalo Springfield songs. I expanded it to ten songs in a new post and brought the old comments over.