“I find the fact that people interpret it as a drug song annoying.

I can tell you that at Cornell in 1959, no one smoked grass,” Lipton said, who was given by Yarrow half of the songwriting credit. “‘Puff’ is about loss of innocence and having to face an adult world. The band claimed that “Puff the Magic Dragon” is actually about losing childhood innocence. I wrote the rest of the words to give it a song form and a dramatic arch, and the music to it.” 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. “He actually left the piece of paper in the typewriter when he left because he was absorbed in getting to his exams. And he wrote part of what became the lyric,” Yarrow recalled. “Lipton 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. The song was written by the one-third of the group, Peter Yarrow, based on a poem about a dragon by Lenny Lipton. Nevertheless, the authors of the song have consistently rejected and vehemently denied this interpretation. Similarly, “mist” was said to stand for “smoke” while the land of “Honahlee” meant hashish.ĭue to its alleged drug references, the song was even banned by the authorities in Hong Kong and Singapore. Also, it was claimed that the word “by the sea” was said to mean “by the C” as in cannabis, while the word “paper” in the name of Jackie Paper was interpreted to be about rolling papers. People came up with the speculation that the word “dragon” was a variation of “draggin’,” like taking a drag from a joint to breathe in the smoke. And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff,” the song goes. Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff. And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee. This speculation was even fueled by an article the Newsweek magazine published in 1964, addressing the theory that several songs in pop-culture had hidden drug messages. “Puff the Magic Dragon” was speculated to be about drugs, especially smoking marijuana.

However, after the song’s immediate success, rumors started to surface.

It also ranked in New Zealand, Canadian, and Australian charts. 2 both in the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100, and No. 1 in the Billboard Middle-Road Singles, No. The song quickly sailed into several charts. In 1963, American folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary made the song “Puff the Magic Dragon” popular.

Puff the magic dragon peter