Peter, Paul & Mary - Puff The Magic Dragon (1963) Storytellers\DayOne Reacts

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Күн бұрын

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@gazoontight Ай бұрын

Lovely Angela. This song has always been open to interpretation, but I see it as the lament for the loss of childhood. "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys" ... Jackie grew up.

@leannmiller7153 Ай бұрын

Yes, that’s exactly what Peter Yarrow has says it’s about. The loss of childhood innocence. No hidden drug innuendo.

@armandtrevy1890 Ай бұрын

Used to sing this in elementary school back in the 70s.

@christianmattison6096 Ай бұрын

This song still brings a tear sixty some years later.

@magneto7930 Ай бұрын

Same here.

@dons2318 Ай бұрын

and that's OK

@TonyM1961 Ай бұрын

You're exactly right. It's simply a lament for the innocence lost by growing up

@graemeturner2536 Ай бұрын

You got this song straight away. That is exactly what the song is about.

@BennoHaas Ай бұрын

Peter, Paul & Mary did a number of children's songs. I've seen them 5 times (years ago I dated a girl who was crazy about them) ... there were often tears in the audience at this song ... I think people are brought back to our own loss of innocence.

@brucesantacory1390 Ай бұрын

Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary did what used to be the most used wedding songs of all time called "There Is Love" but know by most as the Wedding song, if you've not heard it you have to do a video on it.

@chetstevensq 28 күн бұрын

You may be interested in his interpretation of the 23rd Psalm. Like all Psalms should be, he sings it to perfection.

@johno1765 Ай бұрын

To me the song is about how some of us lose something dear when we grow up, namely our innocence and imagination. I think the tragedy that the Peter Yarrow sees is that we don't even realize it. So he takes a very somber tone when he sings about how Puff deteriorated and no longer showed up. But I like how you said the dragon would stay dormant until another child imagined him up. I think that's what Yarrow had in mind when in later years' performance of the song he ended the final chorus using the present tense, "Puff the Magic Dragon LIVES by the sea and FROLICS in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee."

@thomastimlin1724 Ай бұрын

This song is iconic to those who were kids when it came out. Puff the Magic Dragon" entered the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 charts on March 30, 1963, and peaked at number two, kept out of the top spot by "I Will Follow Him" by Little Peggy March. It topped Billboard's Adult Contemporary charts. Finally kids had a bog hot song of their own in the top ten. I was fortunate to see Peter, Paul, and Mary in concert in my hometown in 1986. Best concert I ever saw. Toward the end of the concert 5,000 people were singing Puff the Magic Dragon together, in harmony!! Adults with tears streaming down their faces. the child they had lost in them had come back home. Any one who says this song is about drugs is completely full of BS. It's child's song, with a lesson about growing up. period. Peter Yarrow who wrote it has said so hundreds of times. People just make that sh*t up.

@timradde4328 Ай бұрын

I was 7, and have always loved this song.

@jodyarmstrong5974 Ай бұрын

OMG. You are delving into one of my favourite childhood songs. Always makes me feel sad of poor Puff.

@helgar791 Ай бұрын

For me this song and Kenny Loggins doing "Return To Pooh Corner" are two of the great and sweet songs about the innocence of youth.

@COLINWARD-v3y Ай бұрын

Yes , great reaction. This is very nostalgic for those of us who remember it from our young days, when it was played a lot and was very popular. Magic song.

@kennethroe5376 Ай бұрын

There is a movie made based on this song.. I can remember listening to this song as a child

@firemedic5100 Ай бұрын

I remember watching them years later, and it was interesting how the young children were singing this song. But truly amazing, was the parents and grandparents were singing as well. 3 generations all knew the song.

@johnanon6938 Ай бұрын

Just a couple years later "puff the magic dragon" was the nickname for one of the most devastating ground attack aircraft in Vietnam the Douglas AC-47 Spooky. And by the late 1970s the singers (P,P+M) were singing this and other songs to kindergarden and early grade school kids (gr1-3).

@tetsuoishiki4677 Ай бұрын

The US had a aerial gunship dubbed Puff the Magic Dragon

@sukie584 Ай бұрын

I was 3 and this was such a huge song in my childhood. It still makes me tear up when I hear it.

@soupsyz-themusicaladventur1649 Ай бұрын

Everyone from 8 to 80 can identify with this song. I was in grade 3 when it came out. I loved it. I still do.

@BobGraham-u6y Ай бұрын

I was nine years old today I'm seventy

@Janet076 Ай бұрын

My older sister.. oldest of 8.. sang this to us with her guitar playing it at our bedside as a lullaby . Will always remember those nights.

@Elephant2024 Ай бұрын

The innocence of youth. I was taught this song in grade school. Little did I know at the time there was another interpretation of it.🐲

@1fan164 Ай бұрын

I heard this song on Captain Kangaroo in 1965. Accompanied by an artist drawing a dragon. As the song ends the artist wrote "But wait. Puff comes back!" To resolve the story thus avoid disturbing the rest of the episode.

@Miqlintock Ай бұрын

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

@jurgenschmidt2759 Ай бұрын

The movie embodiment of this song is probably "Pete's Dragon" from 1977

@WilliamBisbee-o6f Ай бұрын

I remember this when I was young I was one when this song came out my mom had a record of this song and other songs of his

@dalepettiner5036 Ай бұрын

My parents took me to their concert once upon a time. Until you hear 6000 people (indoors) singing the refrain, you cannot imagine what this does to a body. Their most requested song beautifully done.

@paulwalker9421 Ай бұрын

Great folk group. You were right on track Thanks Angela

@ericarachel55 Ай бұрын

one of my favorites

@martinl8574 Ай бұрын

Part of my childhood, 60 years later I can still sing the entire song!

@twoheart7813 Ай бұрын

During the Vietnam war the Airforce converted cargo planes into flying gunships equipped with artillery, miniguns, flares for ground support. They were called Puff the Magic Dragon by ground troops as it attacked at night and lit up the sky with hellfire. Probably referencing the song title as it was very popular in the 60's.

@mikecaetano Ай бұрын

Nice! "Puff The Magic Dragon" released in 1963 remained a popular favorite ten years later when I was a child. It's Toy Story, basically, except without cowboys and spacemen. The appeal of the song to little kids back then was assisted by reruns of H.R. Pufnstuf, a Saturday Morning children's television show about a boy lost in a magic land governed by a friendly dragon, that was on its way to syndication. H.R. Pufnstuf was a Sid and Marty Krofft creation that only ran one season. But its mixture of live-action with life-sized-puppets was revolutionary and the show became a cult classic for Gen-X. The cannabis smoking angle on "Puff The Magic Dragon" came later in the seventies as a convenient source of code speak for hiding party intentions from overbearing authorities. Every child, every parent, every teacher, everybody knew the song. But it would take the cheekiness of seventies teenagers to turn it into an ode to the herb that they could hum or sing whenever they wanted to give the signal that a party was on the way, followed by a "Psst. 4:20 at the park." or whatever the details. The 1993 film Dazed and Confused captures some of those times, although the kids portrayed in it are way beyond "Puff The Magic Dragon". Peter, Paul, and Mary also played for posterity, performing "If I Had a Hammer" and "Blowin' in the Wind" at the 1963 March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech. When you're ready for more from them also check out "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and "Leaving on a Jet Plane" if you haven't already.

@martyemmons1859 Ай бұрын

When I was growing up there was a "H.R. Pufnstuf" TV show that seemed to have been influenced/created by this song "Puff The Magic Dragon". I liked it so much that I managed to scape together enough spare change to go and see the "H.R. Pufnstuf" movie at the theater.

@ninjasarereal5883 Ай бұрын

Oh my gosh her hair is beautiful 😍

@pamagnolia Ай бұрын

This came out when I was 10. Have always loved it 😅

@marksanders8028 Ай бұрын

Back in the day people would imagine drug references to every song that came out including 25 or 6 to 4 by Chicago, Yellow Submarine or Strawberry Fields from the Beatles.

@thomastimlin1724 Ай бұрын

yep, idiots...

@BlakeEdmonds-u8z Ай бұрын

This is Folk Music, it was a huge genre.

@williamboylan4516 Ай бұрын

With this song on the radio throughout my formative years, the lesson I took from it was not to take life too seriously and risk losing the playfulness needed to remain happy.

@thomastimlin1724 Ай бұрын

yes excellent lesson

@Mycroftsbrother Ай бұрын

Yep. It's a song about kids growing up and leaving behind their imaginary world. The drug thing was debunked totally.

@Wellch Ай бұрын

We still can live in an imaginary world sometimes.

@roberthoma664 Ай бұрын

When I was a child I believe it was about a make believe Dragon but I see what their saying about Marijuana but you gotta believe what the song writer is thinking and the Artist Peter Paul & Mary. Yes it's a about a Make Believe Dragon in my opinion. Makes me think about the movie " Drop Dead Fred". Nice Reaction.

@comicus6769 Ай бұрын

Peter Yarrow wanted to put a child's song on each album.

@stevenmix3723 Ай бұрын

Just shows to go that drugs rot the brain, for drug users to think this was about drugs. Don't do drugs, kids.

@robt7199 Ай бұрын

These folk songs were so important in the early 60s.... They often had dual meanings especially in light of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam war.... But I would agree that this was about innocence lost,

@kenrk Ай бұрын

John Denver singing "Whispering Jessee", great story telling song. Hope you listen to it someday.

@charliemarshall786 Ай бұрын

I always thought just a fun cute song. Then as an adult took a trip to Hawaii and on the island of Kauai their is town called Hanelei i think i spelled that right. Anyway they had a Puff the Magic Dragon gift shop. Wished now we had went in to relive childhood memories.

@mrloverlover32 Ай бұрын

when I went to school we sang it a lot it was in Danish, gives me so many memories sweet children's song

@cheewooleong5066 Ай бұрын

I always wondered what those "other toys" were...

@davemcbroom695 Ай бұрын

White bread Hippie tunes. There was a division of Rock allegiances at this time. I 'm sorry to say I'm old enough to know.

@johnnyhayhurst196 Ай бұрын

I was alive and small child for this show..

@george217 Ай бұрын

You might like their "There is Love".

@leonardhenderson6723 Ай бұрын

Air force AC97 was called puff the magic dragon in Vietnam war

@MartinMcMartin Ай бұрын

The songwriter explains it himself. Search for Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary talks Puff the Magic Dragon

@Gort-Marvin0Martian Ай бұрын

The part of growing up that is sad. As we say in Texas; y'all be safe.

@raymondgilbert1341 Ай бұрын

I swear, some people just hear the word puff and instantly think drugs. It is clearly about growing up and losing your childish innocence.

@robertfindley921 Ай бұрын

This song was banned in parts of the US because it was believed to be a thinly veiled reference to marijuana. Classic harmonies.

@thomastimlin1724 Ай бұрын

those banning it must have been on drugs, how idiotic.

@fricky11111 Ай бұрын

I had always hoped he would add another verse where another child finds him and he's reborn...but alas.

@joecristman4045 Ай бұрын

It was quite to controversial song for its day but went on to be a multigenerational classic. That is why I recommended it. Thank you for you thoughts.

@keng4847 Ай бұрын

A lot of the people who thought this song was about marijuana use were probably big potheads. Some of who probably think about half the songs ever written were secretly about drug use. To me, the song is about the loss of childhood innocence

@Wellch Ай бұрын

May we get back our childlike imagination

@Vinterfrid Ай бұрын

As a Swede this song can be somewhat confusing; it was a popular song in the Swedish chart in 1966 (but then performed by a Swedish pop group). I was merely a teen by then, but had enough knowledge of English to understand that the song was about the kind of dragons you read about in fairy tales. However, shortly after a Swedish version of the song became quite popular - but in this version 'Puff' was a paper dragon" (i.e. a kite). Thus I started to wonder whether I had misunderstood the original lyrics, since the Swedish lyrics made sense too. Oh well - more than half a century have passed by now and I can accept both versions.

@starman2337 Ай бұрын

"Puff the magic "drag" and live by the "C". Jackie "paper". Easy to see why drugs were connected to the song back in the 60's drug culture.

@ronaldtucker1262 Ай бұрын

Songs like a folk song written for children.

@glenpippin3228 Ай бұрын

Greg Focker: Who would've thought it wasn't really about a dragon. Jack Burns: Puff is just the name of the boy's magical dragon. Are you a pothead Focker? If you haven't seen the movie "Meet the Parents", please watch it ASAP.

@daleb1279 Ай бұрын

When you break it down, this is the same plotline as the Toy Story movies.

@andrelimoges3654 Ай бұрын

This song breaks my heart every time I hear it.

@MartinMcMartin Ай бұрын

Geez, this is unusual.

@rayphelps2129 Ай бұрын

A more modern allegory would be Bing Bong from the movie 'Inside Out"

@jimcarberry8262 Ай бұрын

A fairytale or a reference to smoking marijuana. "Puff", "Magic dragin", "Jackie Paper"

@brucesantacory1390 Ай бұрын

the rumor was the song was about Weed lol

@allensaunders449 Ай бұрын

You should try 500 miles from them 1962 version simple and beautiful

@UncleQue Ай бұрын

I do believe it’s a case of the loss of innocence, but it’s pretty easy to understand why people might think it was about the use of marijuana.

@BobSmith-lb9nc Ай бұрын

Peter Yarrow also does "There is love," a true masterpiece, often played at weddings. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKO3l4GKr6apj7s .

@socalpaul487 Ай бұрын

You are correct. Both Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow have repeatedly stated that there is no hidden meaning to the song, just the obvious loss of innocence. Personally, as someone who grew up with this song from when it was new, I never heard the alleged drug connection until I was in my 30's.

@gordonallen7638 Ай бұрын

Poor old puff he was labelled a drug man and was banned for years

@kenpatton8761 Ай бұрын

And then came Calvin and Hobbs…….

@stevekaufmann4088 24 күн бұрын

Well, in full disclosure, there was a LOT of drug abuse in the 60's and early 70's...lol. Folk singers came up with a LOT of great music back then and worth the discovery.