Hopefully a step above demonstrative-gestural lip syncing, the illustrated song comic can combine the best features of geezer nostalgia, punning, and comic drawing. A nice touch here is that Rubin combines the song’s key line that everyone remembers with its somewhat less-familiar title.
Bonus! On Twitter they provide a bit of animation with another line from the song. Actually, one in the tweet text, and another as an animated header – it may be lost to the crop here. But try clicking *once* on the “play” icon and it may show properly.
Comics I Don't Understand 
There is a LOT going on in that tweet — and it all works.
Huh. I’d seen it several times – and every time, I thought the guy on the right was walking away (and the bridge had broken behind him). Only just now did I realize he’s heading for the bridge… Head and hands and body angle say away, only his feet really say towards.
O(n the off chance anybody needs the song identified — and for the rest of us, a moment to revisit –
“There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear”.
A perfect slogan for this website!
Thanks, jjmcgaffey, realizing he’s heading towards the broken bridge but not seeing it gives a point to the guys on the other side yelling and pointing “Stop!” and “Hey!”.
One of those rare 60’s songs where the title doesn’t contain any portion of the lyric. Making it difficult in the record store to find and buy it.
I’ve noticed a lot of songs that put the hook in parenthesis after the title of the song, to cover this problem (eg: “59th St. Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)”) — I’ve always wondered, are those parentheticals official parts of the titles, or just marketing’s efforts to make sure you can find the record? Was this single labeled “For What It’s Worth (Stop! Hey! What’s that Sound?)”?
larK’s observation about the parentheses trick does indeed seem like a practical solution to the record-store problem Mark H. describes. Though that has it addressing a commercial problem, I’m not sure it should always be put down to marketing. Perhaps the artist has mixed feelings of “This is what I really want to give it as a special clever title” along with “But yeah, I want people to see it identified by the line they will all be singing along with”.
BTW, in this case I don’t know if the single or the track listing used parentheses. BUT we may be in disagreement as to what the “hook” line is — I take it not as “Stop! Hey! What’s that Sound?” but rather “Something’s Happening Here”.
There is maybe a literary equivalent in OR. I remember from childhood a book popular with teachers and parents called *Hans Brinker Or The Silver Skates”. I just now punctuated it misleadingly, but that is how I heard it. And while indeed it is an instance of that practice of indecisive alternate titles, I heard it as like a plot summary, where someone is required to make a choice between that boy Hans and a pair of skates.
Yeah, no, you’re right, “Something’s Happening Here” would be a much better parenthetical title.
Another consideration about the “Stop…” line is that in some parts of the song, “Hey” is replaced by “Children”.
A song that sure seems relevant today!
Mark H., et al. – what is this “record store” of which you speak???
Mitch4 – my favorite “or” is Dr. Strangeglove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Bob – As I have long said would happen – vinyl is making a comeback and we saw a store for same somewhere (back in 2019 when we were going out into the world as I recall).
Meryl, there is indeed booming business in collecting and trading / reselling old LPs and even 45s. What remains rumored but not heavily promoted that I have seen, are new releases pressed on vinyl.
There are quite a few record stores locally. One of the oldest and best-known here is Vintage Vinyl:
https://vintagevinyl.com/
I was under the impression that some more recent records came out on vinyl also.
Found this – https://www.bestbuy.com/site/vinyl-records/new-release-vinyl-records/pcmcat198100050015.c?id=pcmcat198100050015
Sure, analog sound of various types has been more popular of late.