All this discussion about the meaning of "blow", yet nobody's focused on the stick-out line, "Give us some time to blow the man down." When I sing it, I substitute for that line a repeat of, "Yo ho, blow the man down," a key lower, because "Give us some time to blow the man down" breaks the rhythm completely and worse, doesn't seem to make any sense. Therefore it must be an important line in the original whose meaning was contextual.

Who is being asked for time to do this? And why does it take time? None of the discussion seems to refer to any time-consuming operation, nor anything someone would need permission for. Who could give anyone else, let alone a group of people, permission to batter someone down? If it's about signaling, wouldn't it be something needing to be done immediately, and wouldn't it be something mandatory, far from requiring permission?

So in light of a call to be allowed time to perform some operation, what does that say about the candidates for what the rest of it means?