[1] As an activist he was primarily concerned with Scottish nationalism, republicanism and the broad, unaligned, popular protest to the siting of the Polaris nuclear weapons system in the Holy Loch.
His published poetic output, somewhat in the "Synthetic Scots" style of Hugh MacDiarmid, was initially regarded in the mainstream of Scottish modernism alongside luminaries such as Edwin Morgan.
[2] Hamish Henderson considered Blythman a member of 'The Clyde Group' which included MacDiarmid, John Kincaid, George Todd, T. S. Law and Alexander Scott.
[3] However, like Henderson, Blythman would latterly be drawn primarily into political song-making seeing himself as participating in a "'sub-literary' tradition of partisan and often scurrilous satirical verse and song, which has enlivened every conflict and controversy in Scottish history".
Blythman played a role in organising the meeting in Glasgow that commemorated the 25th anniversary of the death of the Scottish Republican leader John Maclean held on Saint Andrew's Day 1948.
'The Clyde Group', Sydney Goodsir Smith, Young Communist League Choir and Glasgow Unity Theatre were all in attendance or performed at the meeting.
Blythman provided the seminal setting of the traditional Scots ballad The Twa Corbies by married the words to the tune of the Breton song "An Alarc'h".
While the majority of the songs were Blythman's the collections also included contributions by Goodsir Smith, Henderson, MacDiarmid, Norman MacCaig, John McEvoy and T. S. Law.
Blythman's collaborators in the songmaking and on the march included his wife Marion, singer Josh MacRae, Jim McLean, Freddie Anderson, Nigel Denver, Matt McGinn, T. S. Law, Alastair McDonald, Cilla Fisher, Hamish Henderson, Alex Comfort his friends John Mack Smith, Jackie O'Connor, Ian Wade and others.