The poem that formed the basis of the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon” was written in 1959 by Leonard Lipton, a nineteen-year-old Cornell student. Lipton was inspired by an Ogden Nash rhyme about a “Really-O Truly-O Dragon,” and, using a dragon as the central figure, he came up with a poem about the end of childhood innocence. Lipton passed his work along to a friend, fellow Cornell student (and folk music enthusiast) Peter Yarrow, who put a melody to the words and wrote additional lyrics to create the song “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” After Yarrow teamed up with Mary Travers and Paul Stookey in 1961 to form Peter, Paul & Mary, the trio performed the song in live shows, and their 1962 recording of “Puff” reached #2 on the Billboard charts in early 1963.

The 1960s being what they were, however, any song based on oblique or allegorical lyrics was subject to reinterpretation as a “drug song,” and so it was with “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” “Puff” was an obvious name for a song about smoking pot; little Jackie Paper’s surname referred to rolling papers; “autumn mist” was either clouds of marijuana smoke or a drug-induced state; the land of “Hanah Lee” was really the Hawaiian village of Hanalei, known for its particularly potent marijuana plants; and so on. But as Peter Yarrow demonstrated in countless concert performances, any song — even “The Star-Spangled Banner” — could be interpreted as a “drug song.”

Here is what the people who created and popularized the song have said about it: