Blow the Man Down

"Blow the Man Down" is an English-language sea shanty, listed as 2624 in the Roud Folk Song Index.

The Syracuse Daily Courier, July 1867, quoted a lyric from the song, which was said to be used for hauling halyards on a steamship bound from New York to Glasgow.

[1] In 1879, George Haswell was passenger aboard another steamship, from London to Sydney, at which time he noted some of the shanties of the crew.

These were published in the ship's own fortnightly newspaper, The Parramatta Sun, and they included a full set of lyrics for "Blow the Man Down."

Its lyrics include reference to a sailor coming home to England from Hong Kong, as well as meeting a girl on "Winchester Street."

Percy Grainger recorded a man named Tom Roberts in Chelsea, London singing a version in 1908, which can be heard online via the British Library Sound Archive.

[4] The folklorist James Madison Carpenter made recordings of the song in England, Scotland and Wales in the early 1930s, all of which are available on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.

The song was of indefinite length, and created by supplying solo verses to an invariable two-part refrain.

Solo verse couplets documented to have been sung to "Blow the Man Down" include the following from sailors of the 19th century.

It's starboard and larboard on deck you will sprawl For Kicking Jack Williams commands the Black Ball.

[3] An article by Felix Riesenberg, who trained and served as an officer in the Merchant Marine in the 1890s, depicts earlier sailors singing these plainer work lyrics not specifically about the Black Ball line.