- In 1965, Newsweek published an article claiming that "Puff, the Magic Dragon" was actually a song about drugs, containing secret code words: "Puff" = smoke; "lived by the sea" = C (cocaine); "mist" = smoke; "Hohna Lee" = another name for hashish; "Little Jackie Paper" = used to wrap joints. Yarrow insists to this day that the song was simply about the loss of childhood innocence, and has no drug connections whatsoever.
- His composition "Light One Candle" has been adopted as a hymn by the Unitarian-Universalist Association, and appears in their supplemental hymnal "Singing the Journey" (Hymn # 1021).
- Peter of the folk group Peter Paul & Mary.
- Co-founder of The Kerrville Folk Festival, Kerrville, Texas, in 1972.
- In 1982, he received the Allard K. Lowenstein Award (Park River Independent Democrats) for his "remarkable efforts in advancing the causes of human rights, peace and freedom."
- He co-wrote the Mary MacGregor hit "Torn Between Two Lovers".
- Children with Mary Beth; Daughter, Bethany (b. 1971?), a documentary film maker and contemporary folk performer and son, Christopher (b. 1973?), shop owner The Monkey and the Rat at 131 N.W. Second Ave. Portland, OR.
- His wife is the niece of Democratic senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.
- In 2003 a congressional resolution recognized Yarrow's achievements and those of Operation Respect.
- Yarrow and his daughter, Bethany Yarrow, often perform together. Together with cellist Rufus Cappadocia, they form the trio Peter, Bethany, and Rufus.
- He was accepted at Cornell University as a physics major but soon switched majors, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in psychology in 1959. Among his Cornell classmates were Lenny Lipton, Thomas Pynchon, Richard Fariña and David Shetzline.
- Yarrow portrayed leftist intellectual Ira Mandelstam in the 2015 film While We're Young.
- Peter graduated second in his class among male students with a physics prize from New York's High School of Music and Art, where he had studied painting.
- On August 28, 1963, Peter, Paul and Mary appeared on stage with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. at his historic March on Washington where their performance of "Blowin' in the Wind" established it as a civil rights anthem. Their version also spent weeks on Billboard's easy listening chart.
- Yarrow was convicted in 1970 of molesting a 14-year-old girl, for which he was pardoned in 1981 by President Jimmy Carter.
- Yarrow was instrumental in founding the New Folks Concert series at both the Newport Folk Festival and the Kerrville Folk Festival. His work at Kerrville has been called his "most important achievement in this arena".
- Peter Yarrow spent the summers of 1951 and 1952 at Interlochen's Music camp.
- Yarrow has cited Judaism as one of the roots of his liberal views.
- Upon graduation, Yarrow played in folk clubs in New York City, appeared on the CBS television show Folk Sound USA, and performed at the Newport Folk Festival, where he met manager and musical impresario Albert Grossman.
- Yarrow's songwriting helped to create some of Peter, Paul and Mary's best-known songs, including "Puff, the Magic Dragon", "Day Is Done", "Light One Candle", and "The Great Mandala". As a member of the trio, he earned a 1996 Emmy nomination for the Great Performances special LifeLines Live, a highly acclaimed celebration of folk music, with their musical mentors, contemporaries, and a new generation of singer-songwriters.
- He is also a political activist and has supported causes that range from opposition to the Vietnam War to school anti-bullying programs.
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