Five-Minute Time Out: Peter Yarrow
Puff the Magic Dragon is back — with a happier ending!
by Jennifer V. Hughes
November 2, 2007
You talk a lot about your project, Operation Respect, which goes into classrooms and teaches children about peace and tolerance. We're raising my four-year-old as non-violently as we can, but she and her playmates still end up calling each other "doody-head" until one kid cries or they're beating each other with sticks. Isn't a certain amount of that inevitable?
The role modeling of parents themselves comes very early. Kids are not coming to the playground as blank slates. If kids grow up learning non-violent conflict resolution very early, how to acknowledge and respect others, how to honor service to their school and to each other, a different kind of peaceful kid will emerge. We need to give our kids heart tools to treat each other with love and caring. I believe that singing the "Blue Tail Fly," song together as kids in school or at home is a political act in the most profound sense because it creates community, respect, mutuality. And that is not about selling books; it's in the blood for me.
The illustrations of Puff in the book are really lovely, but in my mind, Puff will always look the way he did on that fantastic, trippy 1978 TV version. What's your favorite part of that show?
The whole idea of seeing what is and what might be through Puff was my idea. What might 
Singing the "Blue Tail Fly" song together is a political act in the most profound sense.be frightening, like a pirate — you can get away from that vision and walk in the shoes of a pirate. Perhaps you can understand that the pirate at heart is a troubled fellow who always wanted to be a baker.
Another moment that is really wonderful is what compels Jackie to speak at the end: he doesn't want Puff to go away. [Adopts high-pitched cartoon voice of Jackie] Puff!? Puff!? [Goes back to normal voice.] He speaks for the first time because he doesn't want to lose his friend, which is really powerful; it's his love for another creature.
You've repeatedly said that Puff has nothing to do with drug use ("Jackie Paper" as rolling paper, etc.). I read somewhere that to prove your point, you have sung "The Star Spangled Banner," pointing out lines that could be seen to refer to drug use.
[Sarcastically.] For instance: "Oh say can you see," ... now the "see" refers to the C in cocaine. "By the dawn's early light," — that's the time in which junkies are known to shoot up. "Whose broad stripes," refers to prison uniforms, and "bright stars," are the shields worn by the narcotics squad. There's the "perilous fight," to get it across the border. [Uses stereotypical hippie voice, singing:] Whoa, and the rocket's red glare, man, the bombs bursting in air! [Goes back to normal voice.] That refers to the psychedelic experience. It proves that Francis Scott Key was not a lush, but a junkie.
I think folk music gets a bad rap in the hipster kiddie music world now. I hear a lot of parents using musicians like Raffi almost like a curse word — why is that?
Because the music business is all about money. It's not about developing artists and believing in music as an expression of people's hopes and dreams and desires.
©2007 Jennifer V. Hughes and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Jennifer V. Hughes is a writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Mothering magazine and the Columbia Law School Report. She also makes a killer sangria. |
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