Puff the Magic Dragon-(One of the Great Childhood Ballads of All Times)
Michael Governale
This Peter, Paul, and Mary classic would play on the radio, and my father
would turn up the volume so I could sing along.
The memories I have of this experience are fond ones. However, it was not
until years later that I realized the magic and significance of this song
and what it represented.
It is a song about boyhood, telling the tale of a child’s imagination and
the mythical friend to whom his active young mind gives existence.
The lyrics, which I still pretty much know by memory, indicate a symbiotic
relationship between a small boy and his lovable, loyal companion, a dragon
named Puff:
Puff the magic dragon
lived by the sea
and frolicked in the autumn mist
in a land called Honalee.
Little Jackie Taylor, loved that rascal Puff
and brought him strings and ceiling wax
and other fancy stuff.
Together they would travel
on a boat with a billowed sail
Jackie kept a lookout perched
on Puff’s gigantic tail.
Noble kings and princes
would bow when’er they came
Pirate ships would lower their flags
when Puff roared out his name.
A dragon lives forever
yet not so, little boys
Painted wings and giant things
make way for other toys.
Then one day it happened
Jackie Taylor came no more
and Puff that mighty dragon
he ceased his fearless roar.
His head was bent in sorrow
green tears 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.
Oh, Puff the magic dragon
lived by the sea
and frolicked in the autumn mist
in a land called Honalee.
Little Jackie Taylor, loved that rascal Puff
and brought him strings and ceiling wax
and other fancy stuff.
Jackie and Puff appear inseparable. Together they explore any magical world
Jackie’s young, curious mind desires. The happy, innocent bond between him
and Puff, his protector, leaves one with the impression the two will share a
life-long relationship.
Yet, young Jackie begins to grow up and gradually surrenders the innocence
of his imagination to the reality of the world in which he lives. Puff is
eventually left behind in a kingdom within which there is no existence for a
lovable dragon without the aide of the young mind who created him.
For Jackie, life will move forward. Pursuing that inevitable path, which
surrenders the innocence of childhood to new, adolescent realities, he
refocuses his gaze upon the future and is all too preoccupied to look back
at the past.
The true brilliance of the song is that the issue of growing up is viewed,
not from Jackie’s care-free, forward-looking perspective, but rather from
that of Puff, who helplessly watches Jackie slip away, and fades from a
life-sized reality to a mere childhood memory, seldom, if ever, recalled.
Puff the Magic Dragon is a song about that which we leave behind. A song
which forever closes the door on our childhood.
Then one day it happened\Jackie Taylor came no more\and Puff that mighty
dragon\he ceased his fearless roar.
It is, indeed, a sad tale.
________________________The end___________________ but notes below.
Don’t know if I need to even include the following above the last paragraph:
Innocence and imagination must now conform to a belief system necessary to
survival in a world where reality, no longer care-free and without
consequence, is, for the most part, now defined by our interaction with
others and the world around us.
I would hope it is inferred or assumed by the content and fluidity of the
entire piece. What do you think??