Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee
Puff the Magic Dragon
Performed by Peter, Paul & Mary
While the song Puff the Magic Dragon peaked on the Billboard charts at #2 in 1963 it’s remained in people’s hearts all these years later. I’m not sure when I first heard the song, but it was the first song I remember memorizing. And my love for stories flowed from folk songs before movies. So it was sad news to learn that Mary Travers of Peter, Paul & Mary died yesterday. (If 1969 was the summer of love, I think 2009 is going to go down as the summer of death.)
You may remember the Ben Stiller line in Meet the Parents; “Well some people think that ‘to puff the magic dragon’ means to… puff… smoke… a marijuana cigarette.” That’s been several decade old debate about the true meaning of Puff the Magic Dragon. Snoopes reports the original writer of the poem, Leonard Lipton, as saying the song is about the “loss of innocence, and having to face an adult world. It’s surely not about drugs, I can tell you at Cornell in 1959 , no one smoked grass. I find the fact that people interpret it as a drug song annoying. It would be insidious to propagandize about drugs in a song for little kids.” (Lipton’s inspiration was the Ogden Nash poem The Tale of Custard the Dragon).
Peter Yarrow (the Peter in Peter, Paul & Mary) was a classmate of Lipton’s at Cornell University and wrote the melody and additional lyrics. Peter, Paul & Mary formed in 1961 and began performing live. I found the clip below on You Tube that was recorded in 1966. Like American Pie, it’s one of those songs that seems created to sing along with.
Though Peter, Paul & Mary look tame (even quaint) on that video one must remember that this was 1966 and the group had its roots in the bohemian influence of Greenwich Village where Peter, Paul & Mary was formed. Goatees at that time were the tattoos and piercings of the day–part of the beat generation that rose up in the 50s. Producer and arranger Milt Okun, who worked with Peter, Paul & Mary, is quoted in the New York Times saying about the group, “They looked like Greenwich Village to the rest of America. They were the first to go mainstream with an artistic, intellectual, beat image.”
And despite the cheery lyrics of Puff the Magic Dragon it really is a sad story. Ever since I was six years old I’ve felt sorry for the dragon and been drawn to stories of once mighty dragons who’ve seemed to lost the magic and have slipped into their caves.
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!
Screenwriting from Iowa 
[…] Puff, the magic dragon lived by the seaAnd frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called honah lee Puff the Magic Dragon […] Original Source… […]
it’s a green US Army helicopter.
no pilot for puff , because he was KIA.
cave = aircraft hanger.
green scales fell like rain, the fragments of helicopter falling to earth.
The UH-1 Huey, in numerous variants, is the original Army utility helicopter, introduced in 1959.”
a killing machine, that had a bad habit of falling out the sky.
the single !Lycoming would quit and that was all she wrote.
on take off or landing, it will get you, if you dont have lots of
altitude.
think about the above words,
and the poor pilots that had to fly them.
yes , some innocent. (they were drafted , you know, so way I)
can my story be true, ?