♫ Puff The Magic Dragon ♫ (Redux)

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

Now, I originally posted this one in January 2020 after our friend Ellen reminded me that January 16th is “Annual Appreciate A Dragon Day”, and she suggested this one, Puff the Magic Dragon.  Okay, so it’s not January, but this song did a flying leap into my head tonight and I cannot seem to get it to leave, so … why should I keep all this joy to myself when I can share it with friends?

PuffPeter Yarrow, the ‘Peter’ of Peter, Paul & Mary, wrote the song in 1958 before he joined the group. It started with a poem his roommate, Lenny Lipton, left in his typewriter …

“Lenny Lipton and I were at Cornell, and it was exam time. He came to my place in Collegetown, sat down at the typewriter, and wrote some poetic words – he had been thinking about Ogden Nash for a while. And he wrote part of what became the lyric. He actually left the piece of paper in the typewriter when he left because he was absorbed in getting to his exams. It was not intended to be a lyric of a song or anything – it was just something that he typed on paper, and I looked at it and loved it. I wrote the rest of the words to give it a song form and a dramatic arch, and the music to it.

Later, on the second album [Moving], when we were looking for children’s songs – we did some children’s songs on the first album, including ‘Autumn to May’ and ‘It’s Raining’ – I suggested ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon,’ and we put it on the album, without any thought that it might ever become popular in any important way. Yet, it happened spontaneously at some point, because a DJ somewhere in the Northwest started to play it on the radio, and it just took off, and it’s the song that it now is.”

A few years after this song became a hit, Yarrow found Lipton and gave him half the songwriting credit. Lipton, who was a camp counselor when Yarrow found him, gets extensive royalties from the song.

According to Lipton, Lipton was feeling homesick when he wrote it. One day, he was on his way to dinner at a friend’s house, and was a little early, so he stopped at the library and happened to read some Ogden Nash poems. The title of the poem that grabbed him was The Tale Of Custard The Dragon, which is about a “Really-o Truly-o Dragon.”

Lipton was friends with Peter Yarrow’s housemate when they were all students at Cornell University. On the walk from Cornell’s library to the friend’s house (where he was to eat dinner), he wrote the poem, which was about the loss of childhood. But no one was home when he arrived – there was some sort of mix-up about dinner. So he just went in and used Yarrow’s typewriter to get the poem out of his head. Then, he forgot about it. Years later, a friend called and told him Yarrow was looking for him, to give him credit for the lyrics. Lipton had actually forgotten about the poem.

And on that note, my friends, in honour of Annual Appreciate a Dragon Day, I give you … PUFF!  The Magic Dragon …

Puff the Magic Dragon
Peter, Paul and Mary

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal puff
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff oh

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee

Together they would travel on a boat with billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched on puff’s gigantic tail
Noble kings and princes would bow whene’er they came
Pirate ships would lower their flag when puff roared out his name oh

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee

A dragon lives forever but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys
One grey night it happened, Jackie Paper came no more
And puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar

His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain
Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane
Without his life-long friend, puff could not be brave
So Puff that mighty dragon sadly slipped into his cave oh

Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee
Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee

Songwriters: Leonard Lipton / Peter Yarrow
Puff the Magic Dragon lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, BMG Rights Management

31 thoughts on “♫ Puff The Magic Dragon ♫ (Redux)”

    • One of the things I love most about these music posts is learning the history behind the song, and this one is one that touches the heart, as does the song itself. Glad you enjoyed it!

      Like

  2. Pingback: ♫ Puff The Magic Dragon ♫ (Redux) — Filosofa’s Word | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

  5. Pingback: PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON. ( REDUX ) |jilldennison.com | Ramblings of an Occupy Liberal

    • That is one thing in which you and I differ, for I would not wish to still be a naive and gullible child. I’m glad to be grown up, able to comprehend and understand things, still able to learn new things.

      Like

      • Ah, Jill, you are reading me much too literally these days. I don’t want to be a “grown up” as in how most people today are grown-ups, or even as in how my parents’ generation was “grown-up.” I still want to be able to look at the world with a sense of wonder, with a sense that life can be beautiful. There is so little beauty to see in people these days. Everybody wants something. Life is a “shithole” place to be right now, and I acknowledge that. But society as a whole has lost its wonder, its innocence even.
        I know this being who is rawgod will not see the world be a happy place, but I still believe it can and will be, someday, if we can give ourselves a new way to look at the world.
        Our way of life is dying, and I am glad it is. It’s virtually worthless right now. But it does not have to end like this. I have hope. And I have belief in life. Life has not progressed from single-celled plants and animals to what and where we are today just to fritter life away. Over the billions of years life has spent on this planet, nothing has ever stopped it from moving forward, progressing spiritually even if not physically or mentally. In 1967 The Youngbloods sang the line “We are but a moment’s sunlight fading in the grass.” Time is long. Life always moves forward in the long run.

        Liked by 2 people

        • I actually understood what you meant. I read some of my old poetry from as young as ten and can feel my sense of trust and hope in the world, idealism taking center stage. I’m happy to say I still keep my own hope alive and spend my moments living the way I feel it matters. But yes, the world on its current course is doomed unless balance is restored. The fight between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ exists within and not without. It shouldn’t be a battle but a dance of completion. 😕

          Liked by 1 person

  9. So let me get this right. You’re posting a children’s song, which may or may not have drug connotations, to commemorate one of that multitude of stupid, meaningless ‘national days’ that are only celebrated in the US, but you’re either seven months late or five months early? Perfectly clear! This wasn’t a hit here, nor was the album, but it got played a lot on the BBC Saturday radio breakfast show, ‘Children’s Favourites.’ A pleasant enough little ditty, if you’re five years old 😉

    Liked by 1 person

Comments are closed.