[2] Two singles and the LP had not generated much interest on the record charts[3] and the group's performances were largely confined to the Los Angeles area.

[4] A crackdown by police on crowds of young music club goers along the Sunset Strip inspired group singer and guitarist Stephen Stills to write "For What It's Worth".

[6] Local radio picked up the single and soon it became Buffalo Springfield's first hit on the charts, eventually reaching number seven on the Billboard Hot 100.

[10] Meanwhile, Buffalo Springfield began to fracture, with the three main singers and songwriters (Stills, Neil Young, and Richie Furay) each pursuing his own compositions.

[25] The result is an unusually bright, upfront sound for a finger-picked acoustic guitar, described as "metallic",[26] "crystal clear",[27] and "absolutely massive".

AllMusic critic Matthew Greenwald describes Stills's songwriting process as placing less emphasis on a fixed outcome than on an ongoing exploration of arrangements.

[29] Biographer John Einarson describes an extended version "featuring an eastern flavored raga middle electric guitar passage with Stephen and Neil at their most ferocious.

"[1] However, Stills continued to refine the arrangement;[29] he abandoned the third section jam and replaced it with the vocal coda "Soon she's going to fly away, Sadness is her own" verses over a simple banjo and acoustic guitar accompaniment.

[29] Charlie Chin, a musician from Stills' folk music days in New York City's Greenwich Village, performed the bluegrass-style banjo part.

[36] With Young's departure and Palmer's recurring immigration problems, the group was already in an uncertain state and "the failure of 'Bluebird' became a turning point for the Springfield", according to Einarson.

[41] In 1967, an extended version, variously identified as being nine, ten, and twelve minutes in length, began to be regularly aired on so-called "underground" FM rock radio.

[1][29][42] Disc jockey B. Mitchel Reed, at the time involved with the start-up KPPC-FM, discovered a tape of Buffalo Springfield's long version while house-sitting for Stills.

[42] Critic Richie Unterberger described it as "an underground airplay hit of sorts", which was officially released in 1973 on the Buffalo Springfield anthology double album.

Billboard magazine's "Pop Spotlights" column included: "Following up on their 'For What Its Worth' hit, the West Coast group offers an intriguing folk-rock item that should prove to be a sales giant.

It starts off like a piece of contemporary west coast rock, and after four and a half minutes of imperceptible mutations, winds up with a back-country banjo solo.

"[19] Unterberger commented "Stills's 'Bluebird' might have been a smoky hard rock tune, but the arc of its harmonies and the sparkle of its acoustic guitar runs were folk-fried, and the drumless banjo-led section that ends the track is pure bluegrass ...

"[50] While Young biographer James McDonough writes of "layers of virtuoso acoustic/electric guitar" and a "meticulously crafted studio creation", he is critical of the extended version: "An overwrought nine-minute version, complete with Stills's moaning-groaning bluesman posturings, mercifully went unreleased until 1973, but it hardly constitutes any kind of real jam—Young's intermittently berserk guitar was overdubbed.

[23] David Crosby of the Byrds also provided back-up on guitar: "Neil left about a week before Monterey, so I rehearsed with them for a few days and I said that I'd sit in with them to cover.

[51] In late June, Crosby again performed with group members and added harmony vocals (normally sung by Furay alone) in a Sunset Strip club.

[19] For an October 28, 1967, episode of the popular crime drama television series Mannix titled "Warning: Live Blueberries", the group performed "Bluebird" during a nightclub scene.

[29] On several occasions, Young described the group's live performances of "Bluebird", including one in Portland, Oregon in 1967: At that point we were playing some very wild shows and the band was starting to stretch out on Steve's classic song "Bluebird", pushing and pulling it to its limit with psychedelic, string-bending, distortion-ridden, molten, and crashing jams ... That was the Buffalo Springfield that was never heard on record.

[54] Released as the closing track on Stephen Stills 2 (1971), music writer David Browne describes it as a "stab at the big-band rock newly being popularized by acts like Chicago [reworking it] into an overwrought but passionate breakup song".

Biographer Martin Halliwell calls it "a revival ... in a more lyrical mode [as] Young reaches for a similar metaphor to Stills when the song turns from a musing on home to reflect on a lost love that has flown away.

"[23] "Beautiful Bluebird" was originally intended for Young's Old Ways (1985) album, but finally released as the opening track on Chrome Dreams II (2007).