Remembering 2025’s Music Losses: Peter Yarrow

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The medication of the day is Vaseline Intensive Care, because I’m rubbing my nose raw from blowing it. I feel like things are breaking. At least, I hope so! I don’t think my poor nose can take more of this. Tomorrow we start the “top” ten music losses that I mourned in 2025 (and, remember, especially when we get to the top, these are my personal opinions). Here’s the end of the alphabetical list. Peter Yarrow Yesterday we had Mark Volman of the Turtles. You probably didn’t recognize his name. Peter Yarrow is different, because his name was part of the band’s name!!! He was the Peter of Peter, Paul, and Mary. Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey, and Louisville’s own Mary Travers were the folk trio formed in the Greenwich Village folk scene in New York in the early 1960s. Amid all that monster competition from overseas they managed to stay pretty successful through the 60s, scoring their last #1 hit, “Leaving on a Jet Plane” (written by Henry J. Deutschendorf, better known as John Denver). Sometimes political (they sang at concerts for politicians and at the 1963 march in Washington where Reverend King delivered the “I Have a Dream” speech), sometimes unknowingly controversial (I mentioned in the “banned songs” list about “Puff the Magic Dragon” being banned by radio stations because of perceived drug references), and sometimes hilariously spoofing (“I Dig Rock and Roll Music,” linked below, taking gentle jabs at the pop music of the day), they had a large and loyal following. Mary Travers died after a bout with leukemia in 2009. With Yarrow’s death from bladder cancer last January, only Paul Stookey remains from one of 60s folk music’s biggest names. Peter Yarrow Born May 31, 1938, Manhattan, New York Died January 7, 2025, New York City (bladder cancer) (age 86) HALLS OF FAME: Vocal Group, 1999; Songwriters, 2006 (with Peter, Paul, and Mary) “I Dig Rock and Roll Music,” poking a little fun at various music styles of the 60s: