Puff, the Magic Dragon Puff, the Magic Dragon "Puff, the Magic Dragon" (or "Puff") is a song written by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow, and made popular by Yarrow's group Peter, Paul and Mary in a 1962 recording released in January 1963. Lipton wrote a poem in 1959; Yarrow found it and wrote the lyrics based on the poem. After the song was released, Yarrow searched for Lipton and gave him half-credit for the song. The lyrics for "Puff, the Magic Dragon" are based on a 1959 poem by Leonard Lipton, then a 19-year-old Cornell University student. Lipton was inspired by an Ogden Nash
Puff, the Magic Dragon popular secular tune. Both tune and elements of the lyrics were adapted in the controversial parody "Barack the Magic Negro", written and recorded by Paul Shanklin for Rush Limbaugh's radio program, after the term was first applied to then presidential candidate Obama by movie and culture critic, David Ehrenstein, in a "Los Angeles Times" op ed column of March 19, 2007. Yarrow condemned the act as "shocking and saddening in the extreme," stating that "taking a children's song and twisting it in such vulgar, mean-spirited way, is a slur to our entire country and our common agreement to move beyond