Peter Yarrow ’59 of the folk-music trio Peter, Paul and Mary died at 86 on Tuesday at his Upper West Side home in Manhattan. Yarrow co-wrote one of the group’s most popular songs, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” which was based on a poem written by an acquaintance he had met at Cornell.
Yarrow studied psychology at Cornell, where he was also an undergraduate teaching assistant who played guitar in an American folk literature course taught by former professor Harold Thompson, English, who retired in 1959. During lectures, Yarrow would lead the class in traditional songs.
After graduating, Yarrow returned to his hometown of New York City as a musician. It was there that he met Mary Travers and Noel Paul Stookey. Together, they formed the trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
The group became an overnight sensation. Their eponymous first album, Peter, Paul and Mary, in 1962 reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts; their second album, In the Wind, reached No. 4 and their third album, Moving, reached No. 1 again.
One of the trio’s most iconic songs, “Puff the Magic Dragon,” was released on their third album. It tells the tale of a boy and his dragon friend as they grow apart, illustrating the loss of childhood innocence.
The song’s roots actually come from Yarrow’s time at Cornell. In 1959, then-freshman Lenny Lipton borrowed Yarrow’s typewriter to write a poem. Years later, Yarrow found the poem and reached out to Lipton, requesting permission to base a song on it and credit him for it. Lipton’s poem was itself inspired by an older poem written by Ogden Nash called “The Tale of Custard the Dragon.”
From there, the mythical lyrics of “Puff the Magic Dragon” would take on a life of its own, inspiring an animated television special and children’s books.
Peter, Paul and Mary were also well-known for their involvement in progressive politics. In 1963, they performed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington, the site of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Yarrow inspired millions as a performer and activist, but his legacy was tainted after he was accused of raping or inappropriately touching female minors in three separate incidents from 1967 and 1969.
In one of the cases, Yarrow pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a 14-year-old girl and later reached a settlement in another case in 2021.
He spent less than three months in jail in 1970 after his conviction. Yarrow later expressed that what he did was wrong and received a pardon from then-President Jimmy Carter in 1981.