Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Puff the Magic Dragon




Very recently I remembered the song Puff the Magic Dragon which I’d grown with as a kid, and I wanted to look up images for Peter Yarrow and Leonard Lipton who wrote it back in 1959 and recorded it in 1963. I Googled the images – and one on the very first line said that it was Unknown! I couldn’t believe this – that song has been around for 53 years and it was written 57 years ago!

I hadn’t expected to find this. It was just the words on the plain-coloured pic, and was posted by QuotesPick.com. The quote didn’t even say the words in the song as they actually appeared. They’d taken a line from the third verse and mixed it with a line from the first verse. What was that supposed to mean to the dragon?

There’s a story in TheStar website in 2007 about the new book with a new page at the end showing that the daughter of Jackie Paper meets the dragon. The book was done by Yarrow and Lipton and illustrated by Eric Puybaret, and the CD was done with Yarrow and his daughter Bethany. Yarrow figured the new book would provide another “kind of importance”.  I think the world needs this dragon.

At least for the kids. 

Puff the Magic Dragon
Singers: Peter, Paul & Mary
Songwriters: Peter Yarrow/Leonard Lipton 1959, recorded 1963
Revised in a book with a CD in 2007 (words changed are italicised)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puff,_the_Magic_Dragon

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

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 flags 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 Honalee
Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee

A dragon lives forever, but not so girls and boys
Painted wings and giant's
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 lifelong 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 Honalee
Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honalee


 

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