Added: 2 years ago
From: thatsakeeper
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  • My mom used to sing this to me to put me to bed, so it has sentimental value to me. Now I cry every time I hear it.

  • Bullshit.... deal with life's problems as such. Suck it up & move on but NEVER let go of your childhood. It is a part of you & hopefully a good part. Please don't confuse being childlike to being childish!

  • I was taught this song when I was in junior high school in Japan. I still don't know what the song's meaning is, but I really love this song. 哀愁漂うこのメロディーが大好きです。

  • @ATTI0818 The song is about growing up and leaving your childish things behind. It's about the hardships of letting your childhood go.

  • Love how everyone in the audience is stoned

  • a little louder

  • the audience looks so bored. I WOULD HAVE LOVED THIS MAN

  • Beautiful.

  • Mi Jaymie, esta canción te la cantaba cuando estabas chiquita, cuando mi mundo era azul y lleno de promesas y tu eras mi mayor promesa de todas, no puedo evitar que mis ojos ofrezcan gotas del amor que te tengo... Guerita... ahora tienes dos bebas, y tu eres ese Puff, algún día ellas se irán de tu lado y solo como a mi, te quedarán los recuerdos, las canciones y las mas hermosas memorias. Te adoro mi princesa!!!!

  • I wanna play this on my guitar!

  • @Tiff2d6 Do it! It's easy as pie :)

  • one of my all time favorites ... I always cry

  • the audience looks like they r haveing fun and i am about 16 and i love this song

  • ROAR out loud Puff!!!!

  • RIP Mary

  • i love the guy at 2:04, they pause on him for a whole minute

  • i love this song!!!

  • 2:07 Tom Hardy?!

  • "A dragon lives forever, but not so little boys." For some reason, this line has made my heart ache profoundly since I was a very small child. The passage of time and the sense of loss hit some deeply private hurt that even I don't understand. Maybe it's about my parents' divorce or something beautiful in my life that has retired, never to return.  Then again, I just heard my infant son stirring in his crib and I feel a strange sense of return, possibly even redemption.

  • 2:10 who's dat . is it johnlennon

  • Frankly, I never get tired of this timeless oldie!!

  • some people, whilst driving down the road, blast the speakers and crank up the bass to their [c]rap or rock or whatever.

    but me, whilst driving down the road, blast the speakers and crank up the bass to peter, paul and mary. o yah. rockin it. i encourage others to do the same. this world might actually be a better place. ;)

  • I named my cat Puff after this song .

  • Listen to the lyrics of this song...If you STILL think it is about marijuana...Lean in and let me slap you up side the head 2 or 3 times...Then listen again...Repeat this process until you are able to comprehend that it is simple, lovely tune about a child's loss of innocence as he grows up.

  • LOVE

  • Japanese is very impressed. Did find this song in English classes is very memorable.

  • Was one of my favorites in my younger days, use to sing the song all the time, I never put it with pot, but can see how some people would to me it will be a song I will always love.

  • this is the trippiest thing i've ever seen.

  • 2:08 - sing it bro

  • Beautiful!! And so beautiful restored! Clean video, clean audio - love it!

    Oh and hey, is that Paul Simon @ 1:19?? :P

  • This came out in 62, I never saw any Pot until 1969 when I went to Viet Nam. You pot smokers have a higher opinion of yourselves than I do. This was and still is the best song this trio ever sang (my opinion) God Bless Mary, she passed not long ago. My how time does fly!

  • Three voices, two guitars, a song: What else?

  • where is the upright bass?

  • older microphones had more style

  • WHO COULD NOT LIKE THIS!  THEY MUST HAVE BEEN BORN YESTERDAY

  • I was so traumatized by this song as a child. Some friends of mine died in a house fire and I thought Jacky Paper died as well and drove Puff to die of a broken heart and I thought the same thing would happen to me. I really misunderstood the lyric, as a young child....but i'm okay now and think the song is so beautiful, but still has a sadness.

  • I LOVE THIS SONG PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON EVEN THOSE IM 25 I REMEMBER WHEN I WAS LITTLE I WOULD ALWAYS WATCH IT ON VHS TAPE SO MUCH THE VIDEO QUALITY WAS KINDA BAD

  • wait isnt this song about that town Hanalei, Kaui?

  • Comment removed

  • cool

  • It's incredible how much happiness and enthusiasm they put into this song, totally lovely..

  • I really love this song! It's like a story book in a form of a song. <3

  • please stop saying that one of my favorite songs ever is about weed. .. .even though i smoke weed. . . i would like to be able to feel that last bit of childhood innocence when i hear this song. . .

  • My grandma and me would always ride around in her car, and this song was on a CD. I would always put it on repeat because I loved this song. I totally forgot about it until just a couple minutes ago, and I needed to listen to it. Brings back a lot of memories.

  • When i was little and had a bad dream my dad would go grab his guitar and sing this song until i fell asleep

  • who cares what the song is about, its just good!!!

  • I am 61 years old, and I still get teary eyed when I hear this song. I have an 8 year old daughter now, and one night when I was listening to this, she came and sat in my lap and made me play it over and over.( first time she had ever heard it ) She even cried with me. She actually got what the song meant, the imagination of an innocent child. TOO DAMN SAD it can't be like that now. All this "crap" they play that they call music.....yea, right :(

  • i love them

  • Like if you were led here by AVPM/AVPS (: I WAS !!

  • Great song.

    It sure brings back memories.

    George Vreeland Hill

  • dunno how i ended up here...but this is fuckin weird

  • I was in a band in mid '80's. Our female lead singer would break out in tears when I played and sang this song. 

  • Lovely performance - wonderful song. I went to a Paul Stookey concert many years ago in Newcastle NSW AU where Paul performed this song and told the audience it was a song about putting away the youthful pleasures of smoking marijuana. His words have stayed with me all my life. I'm 56 and I think I was <20 at the time.

  • this reminds me of my baby brother who passed away, and yes we puffed while we listened.

    thank you for posting

  • OMG ITS ROBERT GOULD SHAW

  • wat was todays sad news??

  • OMG THEY DO HAVE THE ABILITY TO GROW HAIR!

  • Conheci esta música em 1976 em uma versão em português de Renato Teixeira gravada por Nara Leão em compacto e também interpretada por ela num especial infantil apresentado pela TV Bandeirantes. Só anos mais tarde é que vim a escutar este original, na Rádio Kiss FM de São Paulo. Ô tempinho bom que não volta mais...

  • its not. NOT about weed! its about loss of inocence and heartbreak. like watching your child grow up. you watch revently while your heart pours! im sorry thats how i feel

  • PPM were the "Marvelous Mellow Music Makers." So soft, gentle....

    R.I.P. Mary :*(

  • It most certainly is not about weed. It was taken from a book... God I hate that

  • I can't even hear Mary's voice in the mix.

    As for this being about weed, these musicians may have smoked it themselves but there's no reason to believe the song has anything to do with it. Reading the lyrics doesn't shout out and say "pot" in any way.

  • Puff the Magic Dragon♥ one of my favorite childhood songs, i remember playing this almost every day 7-8 times a day repeatedly dancing around. It inspired me to be happy when i was sad. I still listen to it but the c.d start to lagg and its getting hard to understand. For you's who are stateing this song is about pot and marijuanna think again. This songs about the imagination of a younge child finding innoccence and finding his way threw life. His friend the dragon is waiting for him to come.♥

  • @UnicornsEATlollipops it actually has a double meaning.

  • @neilkulp That's cool, care to share?

  • @UnicornsEATlollipops well yes it is in fact about what you stated - but it was also the late 60's where pot was taboo to mainstream so this was a song that could promote marijuana without blatantly saying it.

  • @neilkulp Why thankyou, and that's pretty chill... i can work with that haha....You're right too. :D

  • @neilkulp look you pot smoker, from the 60s this is what happened to your head it's still cloudy

  • @crusher1944 ....what?

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  • My History teacher showed us this... and I believe Kennedy had a good taste in music. It has been stuck in my head all day.

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  • Thank you thatsakeeper! This song make me remember...

  • This song is not about pot. It's about the loss of innocence, and to quote Peter Yarrow on the subject, "You can wreck anything with...idiotic analysis." sheesh....

  • @eljae28

    it's also got a hidden meaning about Autism... Either Jackie grows up(the theme about losing innocence), or he has sadly died after a "lifelong" friendship(The Autism theme).... Puff returns to his cave, mourning jackie's death... as after all "Dragons live forever, but not so little boys".

    So there indeed is another theme there... but not what most people think it is, rather sadly.

  • @colliric Not so. Look for the version of this one that lasts 5:13. It appears it won't let me post a link. it's explained in the first of the performance that this song is simply about the loss of innocence as a boy ages.

  • @eljae28

    In fact the "Autism" interpretation was what the makers of the classic Cartoon tele-movie, took from the song.

  • great song and i love the movie

  • such a beautiful song!

  • so beautiful...

    hehehheheehheh

  • Ok, I have to say I realize that most of the songs of the 60s were reflective of the drug usage but I could've went my whole life NOT KNOWING what this song really meant !!!!!!!!!!

    Crap, they even had a cartoon of this song!!!!!!!!!!! Thx 2 the person that thought he had to wreck a perfectly sweet song!!!!

  • @livinthe60s1 damn straight

  • congratulations!!!!

  • if you smoke weed... light up to this... watch?v=luPuMFJ19z8

  • Looking at the glassy eyes of the guy who starts singing (I don't know if it's Peter or Paul), it's plainly obvious that he's on acid or something similar. So, while the song may not be about drug taking (according to the song's author - and I'm sure we all believe him, right?) - these hippy, chemical freaks weren't singing this song because they thought it was about the 'loss of innocence'...

  • cmon guys i think its about a boys fantasy and then he grows upp NOT about weed

  • also merryjane

  • This is such a chill song who gives a fuck if it is or isnt about weed everyone was seriously happy in this. thats all that matters

  • They didn't write the song, so what's the point?

  • @nybombs We're all puffs at heart aren't we?

  • @nybombs the song written by Peter Yarrow in the late 50s Peter Yarrow is the Peter in Perter Paul and Mary

  • @paulhgaines Wrong, Leonard Lipton wrote the song in Cornell, Peter Yarrow rearranged the wordings a bit.

  • @nybombs Lipton wrote a poem and Yarrow based the song on the poem and after recording it gave Lipton a co-write on it, which he wasnt obligated to do. A poem is far from a song...

  • @paulhgaines yeah the song was written by Peter Yarrow & Leonard Lipton

  • Think iv'e puffed the magic dragon too many times tonight,i'm wrecked,cya

  • The authors of the song have repeatedly rejected this urban legend and have strongly and consistently denied that they intended any references to drug use.[8] Peter Yarrow has frequently explained that "Puff" is about the hardships of growing older and has no relationship to drug-taking.[9] He has also said of the song that it "never had any meaning other than the obvious one" and is about the "loss of innocence".

  • I was able to see them perform when I was a kid, when they did shows aimed at kids. They did shows under the name "Peter, Paul, and Mommy Too!"

    For people who think this is about weed, the song is simply about growing up and putting aside childish things. Nothing more. As a kid it is just a sad song, and as an adult it's a poignant look at growing up.

  • I literally cried. What a beautiful song.

  • their eyes are so glassy

  • Good song, but where did this come from? Lol kinda random o.O

  • I never bought the "Pot" origin. I believe the song was written as stated. A beautiful children's song. The mystique and aura of the 60's counter revolution provided perfect fodder for this analogy. I have seen both sides. To me this will always be a song full of simplistic childlike joy.

    R.I.P. Mary. Now you sing with the Angels!

  • And I always thought it was about a little dragon! Never mind, it's still a beautiful song. ;-)

  • This song made me cry when I was A little kid, still makes me sad, But its good to hear it again.Thanks for putting up .

  • Do you not know, do you not feel, love can conquer even the mightest of the mighty...

    ...the love of a little boy...

  • This was a campfire favorite when the kids were younger. I just wish I could play it now for the grandkids without the memories flooding over my heart grieving for lives cut too short.

  • I love how every simgle person has their own images for this song, and how much it triggers emotions and happy childhood memories - this is a song like no other simple unsophisticated but somehow MAGIC!

  • a song that makes you feel happy and sad at the same time

  • when i was a little kid my mom used to play this song to me on her 12 stings guitar..im 35 now and every time I here this song i still get teary eyed. I guess it just reminds me of a better time.know my family is all split up and we live all over the country; my parents are in there early 60 and they just split up after like 41 years of being married. they lost there 401k's there house. well anyway it was a better time so fuck you!!!!!

  • even if it's about drugs, who cares it's a freakin awesome song!

  • @gunsandammo92 "Puff's just the name of the boy's magical dragon" Jack Byrns

  • the lyrics around 2:40 always make me cry

    "One gray night it happened, jackie paper came no more. And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar. His head was bent in sorrow, his 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." :'(

  • Someone missed the like button...

  • puff the magic dragon was about the innocents lost when we reach adulthood not drugs u DUMBASS IF U EVER WATCHED THE CARTOON U WOULD KNOW THAT

  • puff the magic dragon was about the innocents lost when we reach adulthood not drugs u DUMBASS

  • Is it just a coincidence that puff would be associated with smoking and "green scales fell like rain" because puff didnt have his paper to smoke? I think its about jackie paper being separated and moving on from his smoking days

  • @Prism12220 interesting observation and if this had been a Stones or Beatles song then yeah definately, but the song was written before smoking marijuana took off in the 60's. I think it's a case of popular culture later evolving in a way that has fit the song lyrics.

  • @shtookatz my computer was messing last night cause of a thunderstorm and i get drunk not high

  • I have three sons 14,16,19...tell me this a bout Pot if you want.....my heart knows what this is about.

  • Ok my question is, why cant it have multiple meanings? i have been reading all of the comments on this song, and people are so pissed off for no reason! all the stoners are just saying that its about weed, and the older people are offended. the facts are that yarrow did state its not about drugs but there are so many allusions to drugs it seems impossible that he didnt intend for the drug reference. but that doesnt take away from how beautiful this song is and that its about growing up...

  • @Mikeyrunner1010 It can have multiple meanings, and the meanings wil be interpreted differently by different generations depending what the fashion of the day demands. The problem with the weed theory is that the song was written before people were using weed.

  • i want to put my cock in her right hand while she sings this

  • @doh1959 why do you think sum1 called mary sings??? MARY JANE :D

  • This song will always be innocent, just as I was when I listened to it as a child. The lyrics for "Puff, the Magic Dragon" were based on a 1959 poem by Leonard Lipton, and if he had intended it as a metaphor for smoking pot, he's not revealing his secrets. I don't believe Peter Yarrow intended it as such, and I never will. ~Sheri

  • I dont care what those haters say, this song is never going to be replaced in meaning. I hope that mary is floating on billowed sail, and keeping company with puff. R.I.P. MARY!

  • in my opinion,mary didn't get to sing as much as she should have.she had such a gorgeous voice,and she was so pretty. R.I.P. mary,we miss you!

  • Very good, great idea and chorus line.

  • @3thEDITION The song my or my not be about weed and I don't really care. What I do know is if they came out and admitted it was about Marijuana that would have been the end of their singing career, remember a thing called Reefer Madness? Recording a song that can be interpreted as a drug song and then denying it only made it more popular. That's showbiz!

  • @ScootTheCat Theres a video that explains the song was about nothing but the obvious. A childrens song.

  • @ScootTheCat how the fuck is this about weed this song fuckin rocks and its a great movie if u havent seen the movie

  • @ScootTheCat Didn't you hear that it isn't about weed from the dragon's father?

  • Mary looks like an ANGEL...............

  • wow, they looked soo stonedd. mary soo pretty.

  • puff is a kite..the song is about growing up.... not about pot...

  • This song is fantastic -- although i always cry when i hear it , - "His head was bent in sorrow, green scales fell like rain......Puff  no longer went to play ,along the cherry lane, without his life long friend , Puff could not be brave,So Puff that mighty dragon, sadly slipped into his cave"--- GOD , gets me every time .

  • @hlywdplayer the worngs with tgem why u sad for?>

  • Who the fuck voted down

  • Scoot, sorry but you are clueless. The writers did not intend the song to be an anthem for smoking pot. It is just a story of a small boy coming of age. Nothing else, per Peter Yarrow himself.

  • 口ずさんでしまう

  • the video have a low volume

  • It wouldn't hurt for a few more smiles, especially blowin' in the wind.

  • peter looks like ine of my teachers named mr.adelstien mary looks like a female math teacher idk how to spell her name so i will call her mrs .c and paul looks like my old schhold principle

  • Jesus tapdancing Christ they are so damn young here

  • @ScootTheCat

    It's not about that, they repeated that for years. If it was, they wouldn't hide it. Their fans (lots of hippies) wouldn't have minded.

    And come to S. Arizona or Phoenix, and you can see that weed is certainly NOT making the world better!!! It's not coke, but it is one of the major drugs in the trade that is ruining our state. And I won't even get into how many families torn apart and lives have been ended in the border states of Mexico in recent years.

  • @ihaveadesk1 Weed is not the problem, it's the money and greed of the smugglers and dealers causing all the trouble. Simply by making it legal with a tax would stop the violence and the tax would bring money in for the state to fight the real problems like illegal aliens. YES the world would be a better place with legal weed and I think we're getting closer everyday.

  • @ScootTheCat

    I agree making it legal would be the best course of action right now. Nevertheless, until you succeed in making it legal, buying weed, the vast majority of which is not locally grown but imported from Mexico, does very real harm to people. And the damage to the people of northern Mexico in the last few years is unimaginable. It would still be bad enough because of the hard drugs alone, but b/c so many people are involved in marijuana trafficking, the damage gets spread so wide.

  • @ScootTheCat things are illegal for reasons...and the worlds gonna be better by breaking the law? ...welll great idea there. Drugs lead to addiction...and with addiction...your no longer in control. and if you're not..then who is? so nothing good will come the world from a ton of addict druggies....People thinking that greatness will come from anythin illegal....its...well dumb. just saying my OP. respect plwes nd thanks. <3

  • @MissLeosLee Blah,blah,blah... Marijuana is illegal for reasons that have nothing to do with addiction. Did you know that Henry Ford played a big part in getting it criminalized so it couldn't be grown and turned into alcohol to fuel his cars. Making gasoline the only fuel available was a very good thing for his buddies in the oil business but it also blocked it's use as a fuel source for everything else. We're just now trying to undo this mess and become less oil dependent. Legal pot = tax.

  • @ScootTheCat look im not really wanting to talk about pot and shit on the comments of a song that has NOTHING to do with pot...i stated my OP....the End.

  • @MissLeosLee and btw. please don't be so selfish and say that the way someone understands the lyrics is wrong. there is a 100 ways to understand the lyrics of this awesome song, and none of them is better or worse than other. they are all good.

  • @Heke32

    I think the songwriter would understand the lyrics better than some random person on youtube.  That is being practical. Being selfish is hijacking the lyrics to support your own views. On another level of selfish is actually buying marijuana and supporting the drug war which is ravaging entire regions of Mexico (growing it yourself is dif.)

    And if you look at the history, the idea for the lyrics come originally from the poem "Custard the Dragon" and have nothing to do with drugs.

  • @ihaveadesk1 good lyrics have something for everyone and can be understood in different ways. it doesn't matter what the writer was thinking when he wrote the lyrics: THERE IS NO WRONG WAY TO UNDERSTAND THEM! That is what every song writer will tell you. The same thing goes with for example paintings.So If a guy who smokes weed thinks this song is about weed, then it is so for him. If some other guy thinks this it is about flying kites, then it is about flying kites for him.

  • @ihaveadesk1 just give other ppl the joy of thinking about the lyrics and finding different meanings, will ya? the way the writer understands the lyrics, isn't the only way. does it really bother you that much, if someone understand the lyrics differently? and btw, there wouldn't be any drug wars in Mexico if drugs weren't illegal in U.S.

  • @Heke32

    I can care less how you interpret them, it bothers me when people dishonestly manipulate the meaning into ways that were not intended to suit their own purposes. Just like when the republicans used "Born in the USA"

    "there wouldn't be any drug wars in Mexico if drugs weren't illegal in U.S."

    I agree, but until the goal of legalization is accomplished, purchasing weed gets innocent children and family members killed. If having weed comes before people's lives for certain people...

  • @ihaveadesk1

    Continued:

    And btw, there also wouldn't be a drug war if certain Americans would put the lives of others before their own hedonistic pleasure and stop buying drugs until they are legal. Mexican criminals don't grow weed and smuggle it across the border for their health! If you are as delusional as ScootTheCath and the 85 people who gave him/her thumbs up, go to the mountains of Mexico, and see how much it is making "the world a better place".

  • @ihaveadesk1 are you sure it's the weed causing problems? weed isn't too cheap to make, but thanks to many growers the prize is cheap and therefore it's not that good business. could it be so that it's drugs like cocaine and opiates causing problems? luckily i live in finland where the weed i buy is grown here. and yes you are right that using a song for own benefits is stupid. that is, because it includes a thought that it s the only way to understand the song. ...

  • @Heke32 ... but if someone's like "hey this song might be about marijuana" there is nothing wrong. but ofc if someone says "marijuana should be legalized because puff the magic dragon is about cannabis" then it's pretty dumb.

  • @Heke32

    Weed is causing MAJOR problems.

    As NPR's "Cash From Marijuana Fuels Mexico's Drug War" notes, "Eduardo Guerrero, a security analyst in Mexico City, says the marijuana trade is incredibly violent. In Mexico, the cartels don't traffic in a single product; instead, they control territories and specific smuggling routes into the U.S."

    To quote the Wall Street Journal, "Marijuana accounts for anywhere between 50% to 65% of Mexican cartel revenues, say Mexican and U.S. officials."

  • @ihaveadesk1

    to Heke32 continued

    And that is good you only buy locally grown. As far as legalization goes, make sure to focus on full legalization, not decriminalization, where some amount of possession is legal but production is not, because that is the very worst case scenario! Even worse than being totally illegal, because demand goes up, but supply stays same.

    And the Wall Street Journal article title was "Saving Mexico"

  • @ihaveadesk1 Oh, I didn't know that. Thanks for info. Still, it's not weed causing problems, it's the illegal status. But I think the problem will mostly be solved for you Americans, when California legalizes it.

  • @MissLeosLee look dude. cannabis itself makes u just as drug addict as coffee does. it's the illegal status that makes some people move from cannabis to stronger and more addictive stuff. please don't make an opinion or at least don't say it out loud, if it has absolutely nothing to do with the facts.

  • @ScootTheCat PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON WAS ABOUT THE LOSE OF INNOCENTS NOT DRUGS U DUMB ASS IF U WATCHED THE CARTOON U WOULD KNOW THAT U _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ASSHOLE

  • @danny53733 It takes you 3 posts to say the same thing so who's the dumb ass here? Go smoke some weed and have a nice day.

  • @ freebird1974,, Yes indeed, the 60's conspiritor in me,thinks PUFF the Magic DRAGon,,along with jackie PAPER,were doing a lot more than just hanging out by the sea..............Oh and did'nt Paul McCartney die in a car crash and was replaced by Billy Shears??LOL

  • This song makes me cry. It's so sad!

  • @XotakureiX me too!!

  • who are these ppl? who is Mary? and how did she die?

  • @1wwegal1 You gotta be shittin me you don't know Peter Paul and Mary. This group is timeless

  • i love u mary .and rest in peace

  • mary is so gorgeous...i cant belive she died.... :( she had such a beutiful voice and such a pure soul.....i love them and i miss them even though im only 13

  • En fantastisk sång! Man får tårar i halsen....

  • @mattttera yes it is a great but sad song i just heard it on a parody of Lord of the ring. but i love it :) sad...

  • awsome,smoothig,and great