You may know Peter Yarrow best by his first name. He was part of the '60s folk trio Peter, Paul & Mary. The group launched their career at The Bitter End in Greenwich Village in 1961 and went strong for nine years.
Tonight Peter Yarrow is at Barnes & Noble (Lincoln Center) at 6pm for a performance as well as to sign copies of Puff, the Magic Dragon
- which he's turned into a children's book. We recently talked with him about the book, the NY music scene in the '60s and the drug subtext that's haunted poor 'ol Puff.
How long have you been working on bringing Puff the Magic Dragon to print?
For over 15 years, a dear friend of mine, Kaylee Davis, who is a very high profile and caring person in children’s book publishing, has been urging me to make a “Puff, The Magic Dragon” illustrated book. It didn’t really make a lot of sense to me until I could find a really special reason to put the effort and energy into making a book on “Puff, The Magic Dragon” that would have a very classic, yet contemporary style and perspective. The opportunity arose when my daughter, Bethany Yarrow, a superb singer on her own, with her virtuoso cellist musical partner, Rufus Cappadocia, asked me to perform with them from time to time. I realized, when singing with them, that all the music I’d been singing so many years now had a fresh new perspective that they had brought to it. They grew up with groove, world, hip-hop, and contemporary jazz as part of their music vocabulary. I did not. But, when I sang with them, something magical happened that made me realize that the next generation of folk music had found its place, and I was lucky enough to be able to join it.
From that point on, the whole idea of “Puff, The Magic Dragon” and other books and CDs that we plan to do with Sterling Publishing became an exciting project for me. Not only did it allow me the chance to sing and create with my daughter and Rufus, but I realized the spirit with which we would approach “Puff,” which I had been singing for 47 years and now had been refreshed.
Along with that, the spirit and dedication to the legacy of “Puff, The Magic Dragon” by Charlie Nurnberg, President of Sterling Publishing, who personally guided this project, along with Frances Gilbert, Chief Editor of Children’s Books, gave the “Puff” book project the most amazing opportunity to give people the gift of “Puff” in an illustrated form after so many years.
Also, the amazing illustrations of Eric Puybaret, who is an artist of enormous heart and remarkable imagination, gave life to the spirit of Puff and Jackie in Honalee in a way that is totally the spirit of the creation of the song, and is also very contemporary and classic, all at the same time.
Can you please enlighten us about Puff being a coded song for smoking marijuana?
I want to assure all of you who are reading this with all my heart and all of my sincerity that the intention of Puff was never anything other than to tell the story of a little boy who came to love a magic dragon, and they became best friends. The story hinges on the lyrics “a dragon lives forever but not so little girls and boys- Painted wings and giant rings make way for other toys.” Of course it is true that childish toys are eventually put away and children grow up to deal with the realities and challenges of life. They need to bend their efforts to make the world a more just place and less filled with war, poverty and suffering. That transition, even though it is sad, is to a certain extent, what life is all about.
We have to allow our dragons to become adults in form and more like the dreams and hopes we have for the world than playful animals, however much we have loved them.
In a way, I believe people have a sense of that sweet sadness and the inevitability of the tasks of life evolving in that way. I think that that is the reason that many people, even in their adulthood, resonate with the song.
For children, I think they are concerned that Puff is no longer loved, which is very distressing. They, themselves, don’t want to be left by anyone they hold dear, so the whole idea of a magic dragon being so sorrowful is, in their world, tragic. Happily, in this illustrated book, published by Sterling, there is a happy ending for the song that reassures children that Puff has another child that will play with him, which is made clear. One of the virtues of the “Puff, The Magic Dragon” illustrated book is that is has afforded the opportunity to resolve this concern that has been held by children for now, 45 years.
When was the last time you took the stage?
I perform almost constantly these days, but most of my concerts are performed without a fee. In most cases, if there is a fee, the money is donated to Operation Respect, which is a foundation that I started nine years ago, which is devoted to the establishment of safe, caring, and respectful climates of education for children and youth throughout the US and in many foreign countries. I would guess that I perform on an average of 20 concerts a year as a member of the Peter, Paul, and Mary trio, and then I perform about a dozen or so with Bethany and Rufus, my daughter and her musical partner, who recorded the three songs on the CD that are sold as part of the book, and with whom I have just finished an album of songs that incorporates their style and perspective, which is a contemporary take on folk music. Bethany and Rufus have listened to music with ears that have grown up appreciating musical forms that were not around when Noel (Paul), Mary and I developed our sounds. We didn’t have the sounds of world music to relate to nor contemporary jazz nor groove music—all which are very much a part of their music. On their albums, one can hear where folk music has gone, yet it still retains the spirit and integrity of the music, even with these changes. What they have done is similar to what Peter, Paul, and Mary did in the early 60s when they redeveloped contemporary music of the time to become a bridge in which people began to listen with the understanding of the root musical forms that was the basis of most of the songs we sang, particularly in the first decade.
The last group of performances I’m doing is the most numerous and these are benefit performances for Operation Respect. Though I’ve now cut back to 40 or 50 performances a year, that particular work of creating environments in schools and communities in which children feel safe and cared for is the reason for the majority of my touring, and you can believe that I love doing that very much.
In answer to your question as to whether Puff was about something other than the loss of the innocence of childhood, I can assure you that the intention was not even remotely to be interpreted as referring to marijuana or any other drugs, for that matter. That is absolutely absurd. After a while, you realize you cannot control the destiny of a song. People will do with it what they will, and I had no idea that Puff would become the name of an airship with Gatling gun firepower that was used in Vietnam. At a certain point, as a songwriter, you know that the song belongs to the people who sing it, and you are grateful that it is part of their lives.
You came to New York (Greenwich Village) in the '60s, can you tell us what the area was like then? What was the music atmosphere of that time?
The music in Greenwich Village in the early 60’s was filled with the excitement of discovery. The music was telling the story of people’s hopes and dreams for a more authentic egalitarian and fair society. This music as opposed to pop music that preceded it on the radio truly provided the window to people’s hearts allowing them to band together to work toward equality in the US through the civil rights movement, to bring their hearts and convictions together to stop fighting a war that was, to many of us, a very tragic mistake, and also to reach for greater equality between men and women in the business and political worlds, and in the home as well. The music of Greenwich Village touched people in a way that is hard to describe how because it provided an epiphany for them in terms of their awareness of what life could be and where they wanted to spend their energies to help better society. Because of that, the musicians and singers were non-competitive. Money was not really the object, and a clean, clear vitality was the order of the day. Unfortunately, that kind of purity of motive and the role of music in society has changed a great deal since then, although folk music is still sung and played all over and is part of people’s lives. It is part of the music people share in their churches, and children sing in summer camps. However, the music business has now become extraordinarily diminished, and I think that the country is far the worse for that loss.
Please share your strangest "only in New York" story.
New Yorkers are “supposed” to be rude and insensitive and presumably anything but generous in their approach to one another. However, that is not the case, in my opinion. If you were to be in NY at the time of a blackout and see the way people treated each other and helped each other, you would know as well as I that when push comes to shove, they are there as a community in ways that belie the common view of who they are. New Yorkers’ vitality and drive is sometimes viewed as rudeness to those who visit, but scratch that service, and you’ll find warm and caring hearts.
Which New Yorker do you most admire?
Allard Lowenstein, who was a member of Congress, was to my mind perhaps the greatest organizer I have ever known, and I am privileged to have received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award, for “remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace and freedom,” in his name. I admired him and loved him greatly, and in many ways, he was a role model for me.
What's your current soundtrack/what bands are you listening to today?
If you go to the Kerrville Folk Festival, which takes place the last week of May and the first 2 weeks in June, in Kerrville, TX, which is about 1.25 hrs from San Antonio, you will hear the new singer/songwriters who are first getting recognized for their work and their gifts. My greatest enthusiasm for listening to music relates to my delight in hearing and watching new Bob Dylans, John Denvers and Gordon Lightfoots emerge. That’s my favorite soundtrack, other than classical music, which is still an important source of inspiration to me in my life.
Yankees or Mets?
I was always a Yankee fan, and when I was young, I saw Joe DiMaggio hit a number of home runs. In fact, baseball is the only spectator sport that I really get into. For some reason, baseball is, for me, the spirit of NY and the spirit of America in some odd, but wonderful ways.
