Day Is Done -- Remembering Peter Yarrow

Many of us have precious personal memories of our times spent with Peter, Paul and Mary. This week, with the passing of Peter Yarrow, at 86, I cast my mind back to three special occasions.

On May 11, 1975 there was a grand celebration, the “War Is Over” concert and peace rally in Central Park. More than 50,000 people got together on the Sheep Meadow to celebrate that finally, finally the Vietnam War had ended. I was there and of course Peter Yarrow was there too.

His moments on stage that day are the most vivid in my mind. Performing solo with his guitar, he sang “If You Take My Hand, My Son.” He recalled singing it at the Moratorium march on Washington in 1969. And he told us this: “I remember the feeling then — that somehow by coming together we could make a life in which people would not kill or hurt each other any more. It was in the conscience of the young that this war was stopped.”

Memory two: Five years later, not far from that park, I interviewed Yarrow at his apartment on the upper West Side of Manhattan. I was doing an advance story for the New Haven Register on an upcoming performance by the reunited Peter, Paul and Mary at the New Haven Coliseum.

Still holding fond memories of that celebratory day in the park, I mentioned to Yarrow that I had heard him perform there. He smiled and said, “Oh, you’re much too young to have been at that show!” (I was 30 when I interviewed him but I have always looked young for my age.)

After we settled in at that luxurious and spacious apartment, he told me his longtime association with Mary Travers and Noel Paul Stookey was “a love affair.” He noted it was “as explosive and comfortable and energetic and magical as it always has been.”

I had my lead for the story.

Yarrow also discussed with obvious feeling the group’s disbanding in 1970, the joy of their periodic reunions and the rewards of being a father.

“After the demise of the promises of the Movement in the ‘60s, there was another sun that rose on the horizon of my life, and that was the adventure of my two children (he had a daughter and a son)…Being a daddy has been just a joyous, wonderful, challenging adventure. It requires as much as you can give, just like the Movement.”

Focusing on the “local angle” for my story, Yarrow told me he had “a very special feeling for New Haven” and had helped resurrect the city’s fabled Shubert Theatre.

Our conversation was on a roll; I felt we were just getting started. But quite abruptly, after maybe 15 minutes, a pretty young blond woman came to his door and Yarrow casually announced we were done with our little interview. (His marriage had ended in divorce, although he would later remarry his wife).

I was a bit miffed, having taken the train from New Haven for an important in-person interview. But this was Peter Yarrow, and I was just a reporter for the New Haven Register. I stifled my disappointment.

Re-reading my story this week, I noticed I did not include something the New York Times had in its full-page obituary and sidebar: Yarrow’s conviction in 1969 for making sexual advances on a 14-year-old girl who had come to his hotel room seeking his autograph. He served three months of a one-to-three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to taking “indecent liberties” with the girl. He told the New York Times: “I do not seek to minimize or excuse what I have done and I cannot adequately express my apologies and sorrow for the pain and injury I have caused.”

Maybe I left this out because I didn’t want it to color the whole story. Or maybe I hadn’t done adequate research. I was shocked to read about it in the Times obituary. Peter Yarrow, how could you? But it was interesting to learn that President Jimmy Carter, whose funeral was held this week, pardoned Yarrow on the last day of his presidency.

My advance for the trio’s New Haven show also included quotes from Travers, whom I interviewed over the phone. She was as friendly and upbeat as she always appeared to be on stage: “I’m optimistic that we’ll figure out how to be civilized.” She died in 2009; Stookey is now the sole survivor of the group.

My third fond memory of Peter, Paul and Mary is taking my future bride to another of their shows at the New Haven Coliseum, this one on June 26, 1982. We had just started dating, were falling in love and this was our first concert together. It was a beautiful, romantic evening.

I haven’t tried to find the song list but that night they probably sang “Puff (The Magic Dragon),” which Yarrow co-wrote and then spent years adamantly insisting it had nothing to do with marijuana. And I bet we heard “Day Is Done,” which Yarrow wrote for his son. In that song Yarrow suggested the coming generation might create a more just world. Let us give Yarrow credit for doing his part in his generation.