16 March: Puff the Magic Dragon

On this date in 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary released the single, Puff The Magic Dragon. 10 things you might not know about the song.

1. The song was written by Peter Yarrow, before he joined Peter, Paul and Mary.
2. His inspiration was a poem that his college friend, Lenny Lipton, started to write during a short break from exam revision. He left it in the Typewriter - Yarrow read it and decided to finish it and turn it into a song.
3. Lipton, in turn, had been inspired by an Ogden Nash poem called The Tale of Custard the Dragon, at a time when he'd been feeling nostalgic about the end of his own childhood.
4. For their second album, Moving, they wanted to include some children's songs. Yarrow suggested that song he'd written at college, so they included it, not realising how popular it would become.
5. When the song became a hit, Yarrow tracked Lenny Lipton down so he could share the songwriting credit with him. Lipton had completely forgotten his little poem by then. He still receives royalties from it.
6. Was the song about drugs? People have speculated that "Puff" is slang for weed, or the act of inhaling from a joint; that "Jackie Paper" represents the papers rolled to make a joint and "dragon" is a corruption of "drag in"; "autumn mist" could be smoke from weed and "the land of Hannah Lee" could refer to Hanalei, a place in Hawaii famous for growing marijuana. Hong Kong and Singapore even banned the song because of the alleged drug connection. The band deny that the song has any connection with drugs.
7. According to the band, the song is about the loss of childhood innocence. Peter Yarrow further claims that he wasn't even aware of pot at the time he wrote the song, so couldn't even have included the references subconsciously.
8. Lipton's poem had an extra verse in which Puff finds another child to play with after Jackie Paper leaves, but it didn't make it into the song, and has now been lost. However, a 2007 book adaptation of the song ends with an illustration of Puff finding a new companion, a little girl, who is introduced to Puff by an older Jackie Paper and is presumed to be his daughter.
9. The song's history took a more sinister turn during the Vietnam war when the Viet Cong referred to American fighting planes as "dragon ships", and the Americans in turn started calling them "Puff the Magic Dragon".
10. Elon Musk named his Dragon spacecraft after Puff the Magic Dragon.

My Books 

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The Ultraheroes series

Several new groups of superheroes, mostly British, living and working (mostly) in British cities like London and Birmingham. People discovering they have, and learning to live with, superpowers. Each book is complete in itself although there is some overlap of characters.

The Raiders series

A tale of two dimensions, and worm hole travel between the two. People displaced in both time and space, learning to get along and work together to find a way home while getting used to the superpowers wormhole travel gave them. A trilogy.

Golden Thread

A superhero tale with a difference. Five heroes from another dimension keep returning - whenever they return, they have a job to do and are a well-meshed team in order to do it. Until one time, something goes wrong...

Tabitha Drake series

A different kind of power - the ability to talk to dead people. Tabitha has it, and murder victims seek her out to make sure justice is done. Tabitha has this and a disastrous love life to cope with.

Short story collections

Some feature characters from the above novels, others don't. They're not all about superheroes. Some are creepy, romantic, funny.