Give Me Some Time to Blow the Man Down
‘Blow the Man Down’ is one of the true classics of the sea shanty tradition. It is a real working song, and one of the best examples of a halyard shanty, built to be sung with a rope in your hands.
When we sing it, the crowd needs very little encouragement. The chorus is a gift to a shantyman, because the crew can answer with all the strength they have.
What Does the Title Mean?
Many people assume that the ‘man’ is being blown over by the wind. In fact, ‘blow’ was old sailors’ slang for a punch, and to ‘blow a man down’ meant to knock him to the deck, whether with a fist, a belaying pin or a capstan bar.
That tells us something about the ships where the song was born. They were not gentle places.
The Western Ocean Packets
The song is associated with the ‘packet ships’, the fast sailing ships that carried passengers, mail and cargo between Liverpool and New York across the Western Ocean, which is what sailors called the North Atlantic. The most famous was the Black Ball Line, founded around 1817–18, which was among the first to offer a regular scheduled service across the Atlantic. Its ships sailed on fixed dates, whatever the weather, and flew a flag with a black ball on a red background.
The packets were famous for their speed and for the skill of their seamen. They were also famous for their tough officers, who were not afraid to use their fists to keep the crew moving. The crews, who were nicknamed ‘packet rats’, were often Irish or American and were known as hard men. In some versions of the song, the singer complains that he wasted his best years on the Black Ball Line.
A Halyard Shanty
‘Blow the Man Down’ was sung as a halyard shanty. A halyard is the rope used to haul a yard, the horizontal spar that holds a sail, up the mast. The sailors would pull together on certain words in the song, and with each heave the yard would rise a few more inches.
As we described on our main history page, this is a Call and Response song. The shantyman sings the verse while the crew take a breath, and then everyone answers on the chorus, hauling together. The shanty marked the rhythm, so that every pair of hands pulled at the same moment.
Where Did It Come From?
As with most shanties, nobody knows who first wrote it. The tune may have developed from earlier songs, and one early version was called ‘Knock a Man Down’, which was printed by the collector Cecil Sharp in 1914. Some writers think the tune is related to songs sung by African-American dock workers and seamen, who contributed a great deal to the shanty tradition.
Stan Hugill, who learned shanties as a working sailor, said that the earliest words were taken from an old forebitter song about a London street, Ratcliffe Highway. Over the years, sailors added verses about the Black Ball Line, including a very unpopular captain nicknamed ‘Kicking Jack’ Williams. There are countless versions, and a good shantyman could invent new verses on the spot.
By the 1880s steamships were taking over from the packet ships, but the song outlasted them.
“Give me some time to blow the man down.”
Why We Still Sing It
- The chorus is easy to learn, and loud enough to shake the lifeboat station.
- It is a true working song, so it is a great one to pull a rope to.
- The verses are flexible, so the shantyman can add new ones.
- It gives a vivid glimpse of the tough, fast, exciting world of the Atlantic packets.
We would like to think that those packet rats would approve of our version. We have swapped the rolling deck for the apron of the lifeboat station, and the fists for a friendly crowd, but the song is just as lively.
Come and hear it for yourself. Have a look at our Performances page to see where we will be next, and don’t forget to sing along. If you have a favourite verse of your own, drop us an email at contact@theselseyshantymen.co.uk!