The year was 1963; JFK was assassinated in Dallas, The Beatles released their first album, and Martin Luther King Jr gave his “I have a dream” speech in Washington DC. This was the backdrop for the release of “Puff, the Magic Dragon” by American folk revival band Peter, Paul and Mary. The song was based on a poem by American lyricist and filmmaker Leonard Lipton. In 1959 Lipton was a 19-year-old Cornell University student and roommate of Peter Yarrow, later of Peter, Paul and Mary. Lipton wrote the poem on Yarrow’s typewriter in 1959 and forgot about it until years later, when Yarrow got in touch to share the credit for the song he’d written around the poem.
The song tells the tale of an immortal dragon named Puff and his adventures in the land of Honah Lee with his friend, Jackie Paper. Alas, adulthood strikes for Jackie, who matures and leaves Puff alone with his games because, as the lyrics go: “A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys” (Yarrow later changed this to “girls and boys”).