Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The song tells the tale of an immortal dragon named Puff and his adventures in the land of Honah Lee with his friend, Jackie Paper. Alas, adulthood strikes for Jackie, who matures and leaves Puff alone with his games because, as the lyrics go: \u201cA dragon lives forever, but not so little boys\u201d (Yarrow later changed this to \u201cgirls and boys\u201d). After the tune\u2019s initial success \u2014 it peaked at number two in the US charts \u2014 speculation arose that it was not, in fact, about the inevitable loss of innocence in children. A 1964 article in Newsweek proclaimed that \u201cPuff\u201d was actually a reference to smoking marijuana. Puff\u2019s friend Jackie Paper was said to be a reference to \u201crolling papers\u201d, and the land of Honah Lee was supposedly a euphemism for \u201chashish\u201d. The cherry on the cake of the accusation was Puff himself, interpreted as a reference to \u201cdraggin\u2019\u201d \u2014 as in, taking a drag from a joint. \u201cPuff\u201d was considered in the same gang as tracks such as \u201cLucy in the Sky with Diamonds\u201d; a New York Times reader wrote in 1984 that such songs were part of the \u201cromanticisation of drugs in the \u201960s\u201d. The same reader judged that it was \u201cdisingenuous to use the song as a symbol of innocuous intent\u201d.The band broke up in 1970; in the same year, Yarrow, who died in January this year, was convicted of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl. He served three months in prison. He was pardoned by President Jimmy Carter in 1981, the day before his presidency ended.\u00a0One unusual destination for this song was as a nickname for a powerful gunship aircraft, the AC-47 Spooky, used by the US in the Vietnam war. Airmen called it \u201cPuff the Magic Dragon\u201d because on night missions its guns spouted fire and smoke. An unlikely fan of the song is Elon Musk, who named a family of spacecraft after it, the SpaceX Dragon. \u201cSo many people thought I must be smoking weed to do this venture,\u201d he said, thus perpetuating the purported link with marijuana.But the song\u2019s real message still rings true: the carefree innocence of childhood is to be protected, and is often over all too soon.Let us know your memories of \u2018Puff, the Magic Dragon\u2019 in the comments section belowThe paperback edition of \u2018The Life of a Song: The stories behind 100 of the world\u2019s best-loved songs\u2019, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by ChambersMusic credits: Warner; Noel Paul Stookey; Classic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.The song tells the tale of an immortal dragon named Puff and his adventures in the land of Honah Lee with his friend, Jackie Paper. Alas,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":292390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-292389","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-culture"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292391,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292389\/revisions\/292391"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}