The third and final article in JM Carpenter's NYT series.

1931        Carpenter, James M. "Chanteys that 'Blow the Man Down.'" New York Times (26 July 1931).

Case study of "Blow the Man Down" to show the fluid and adaptable nature of chanties. Excerpts follow.

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"Blow the Man Down."…In its numerous versions - I have
collected thirty in the United States and the principal ports of England,
South Wales, Scotland and Irelan - it has woven into itself two fore-castle
songs, "Radcliffe Highway" and "Tiger Bay"; two ballads, "Blow the Winds Westerly" and "The Farmer's Curst Wife"; one broadside, "The Indian Lass"; a Scottish bothy song, "Erin Go Bra"; four chanteys, "Knock A Man
Down," "The Black Ball Chantey Song," "The Flying Fish Sailor" and "The Ship Neptune"; and love adventures in Radcliffe Highway, Paradise Street, Denison Street, Waterloo Road, Winchester Street, Tiger Bay, Lemon Street, Cleveland Square. Scarborough Town, the outskirts of Bristol and two or three without a local habitation or a name.
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Review of print sources: Chambers's 1869, Alden 1882, Adams 1879. But then supplemented by field sources, finding the song attributed to mid 1850s.
//
I had thought until a short time ago that this unusual ehantey was
of recent origin. since it was not included in lists given by Chambers Journal (1869), "On Board the Rocket" (1879), and Harper's Magazine
(1882). But recently I found two saIlors, both more than 90
years old, who stated that they bad heard it In 1854 and 1855. At
all events, a stanza. learned by a sailing-ship master in 1870,

We'll blow a man down and we'll knock a man down,
Give us some time to knock a man down.

is of unusual significance in its bearing on the origin of the chantey.
For in its earliest printed form, In 1879, it appears as "Knock
a Man Down":
[quotes Adams]

With this compare the version of a sea captain from Salem, Mass.,
who first went to sea in 1868;

I wish I was in Mobile Bay,
Way, hey, blow the man down!
A screwing cotton by the day,
Give me some time to blow the man down!

"Knock a Man Down" is clearly the original form of the chantey.
The tune unmistakably is of Negro origin. probably trom the cotton
screwers of the Southern ports. Barring the chorus, the air is
closer to that of a Negro chantey that I found recently than to the
current tune of "Blow the Man Down," which first appeared with
tbe printed version of 1883 [i.e Luce's Naval Songs]. There
the piece listed as "Black Ball Chantey Song," shows signs of a
thorough over-hauling and re-working:

Come all you young fellows that follow the sea,
With a yeo, ho! blow the men down!
And pray pay attention, and listen to me;
Oh, give me some time to blow the men down! [from Luce 1883]
//

//
…An encounter with a policeman, evidently a parody on the Black
Ball version, deals with the same theme:

As I was a-walking down Radcliffe Highway,
To me, way, hey, blow the man down!
I met a policeman and to me he did say,
Oh, give me some time to blow the man down!

"I know you're a buck by the cap that you wear;
I can tell you're a buck by the red shirt that you wear.

"You've sailed on a packet that flies the Black Ball;
You've robbed some poor Dutchman of boots, clothes and all."

"Oh, no, Mr. P'liceman, you do me great wrong,
I'm a Flying Fish sailor, just come from Hongkong!"

They gave me three months in Gamboree Jail
For booting and kicking and blowing him down.

A version from ScotIand gives new detail. After the verse beginning,
"I'm a Flying Fish sailor," it continues:

"My name is Pat Campbell, I live in Argyle;
I've traveled this nation for many the long mile.

"Through England, through Ireland, through Scotland ava,
And the name I go under is 'Bold Erin Go Bra.'"

Thus is revealed the source of the chantey "Erin Go Bra," current in
Scotland as a bothy ballad, whose lively scene depicts the discomfiture
of the sailors' old enemy, the police. Two stanzas from a colorful
version that I found last Summer will illustrate the chanteyman's
method of treating his material:

Ae nicht in Auld Reekie [Edinburgh] as I walked doon the street,
A saucy policeman I chanced for tae meet;

He gloored in me faca an' I gied him some jaw;
Says, "When came ye over frae Erin Go Bra!"

The policeman goes on to say, "I ken ye're a Paddie by the cut o' yer
Hair," and he concludes that "since ye're a Paddie, ye sudna be here." But

A switch o' black thorn that I held in my fist.
I made it aroon his big body tae twist;

The blood frae his napper I quickly did draw,
I showed him a game played in Erin Go Bra.
//

//
A fanciful version of "The Fish of the Sea," sung by an American
chanteyman to the tune of "Blow, Boys, Blow," was popular once
both in England and the United States. It seems better adapted to
the movement ot "Blow the Man Down," as sung by a chanteyman
in the north of England:

Now pray pay attention and listen to me,
To me way, hey, blow the man down!
And I'll sing you a song of the fish of the sea.
Oh, give me some time to blow the man down!

Up jumps the cod with his big chuckle head,
He jumps in the chains for to heave the iron lead.

Oh, up jumps the flounder, the bottom to swim.
You fat-headed monster, don't do that again.

Then up jumps the porpoise with his long snoot;
He waltzes round the deck, sing" Ready, aboot!"

The next fish that came was a hoary old shark.
I'll eat you all up, if you play any lark!"

A short time ago I found a very old sea song, "Haul Together, Boys," which seems to be the source of the version quoted above. It was given to me by a fishwife, 88 years old, who learned it as a child from the "Iron Horse," another very old fishwife, so called on account of her great strength and imperviousness. to cold. The tune is the most suggestive of the sea that ever I have heard. The ballad begins:

An' it's up starts the herrin', the king o' the sea,
Singin' "Farewell to thee, boys,
Oh, farewell to thee!'"

So it's haul together, boys!
Stor-r-my weather, boys!
Let the wind blo-o-ow!
Stor-r-rmy weather, boys!
We shall sail slo-ow!
//

//
The sailors found keen amusement in the old ballad "The Farmer's
Curst Wife," just as the ballad singers of Scotland enjoyed "The
Wee Cooper of Fife," a ballad with a kindred theme. "The Farmer's
Curst Wife" appears in varying forms in four versions of "Blow the
Man Down," two from America and two others, more regular, from
England. Richard' Warner's version, one of the English renderings,
runs:

Now listen to me, and a story I'll tell,
To me way, hey, blow the man down!
Oh, listen to me, and a story I'll tell,
Give me some time to blow the man down!

There was on old farmer, as I have heard tell;
He had on old wife and he didn't wish her well.

Now the Devil he came to him one day at the plough;
"I want your old woman, I've come for her now.

"And if you're not civil, I'll take you as well."
So off with the old woman, right straight down to Hell.

There were three little devils chained up to the wall;
She took off her clog and she walloped them all.

Now these three little devils for mercy did bawl,
"Chuck out the old hag, or she'll murder us all!"

The American versions are rather more vigorous and colorful, showing, in one instance, the sailor's leaning toward a racy sea yarn:

As I was a-walking one morning in Spring,
Way, hey, blow the man down!
I walked into a country inn,
Oh give me some time to blow the man down!

I set meself down, and I called for some gin,
And a commercial traveler next came in.

We talked of the weather and things of the day;
Says he, "My friend, a story I'll tell.

"lt's of an old tailor in London did dwell;
The Devil came to him one day out of Hell.

"Says he, 'My friend, I've come a long way
Especially you a visit to pay.'"

Thereupon the frightened tallor calls out, "Oh, please, Mr. Devil,
don't take me away," and Satan replies soothingly:

"It's not you nor your daughter nor your son that I crave;
It's your grumbling old wife, the drunken old Jade."

The story continues as in the former rendering, but with ingeniously
improvised incident and vigorous idiom. …

A Scottish version adds a quaint touch. After the devil had pronounced his ultimatum and delivered the unwanted woman to her husband, the narrative concludes:

She was seven year gaun an' seven year comin'
An' she cried for the sawens she left in the pot.
//

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…But among the chanteys' motley array of renderings, perhaps the
drollest portray the cruises down Tiger Bay, Radcliffe Highway.
Paradise Street, and numerous other landlocked harbors well
known to sailors. The taste for the incongruous, even to the point
of the grotesque, which preferred to "blow" rather than "knock" a
man down, to regard the fishes of the sea as sailors and the latter as
hangmen Johnnies or a "mixture of an Indian, a Turk, and a chimpanzee,"
would be expected to find in a drab London alley "flash-looking"
packets.

An incident of a land cruise related of a chanteyman illustrates the nature ot the raw material that was finally etherealized into the body...or the epics. For ten years he had been a packet sailor under the rough-and-ready code of ethics which deprived the men at the forecastle "of the pleasure of stealing from each other." During an
amour ashore, therefore, he stole a gold watch belonging to his sweetheart's mistress. His thick, massive shoulders and powerful stature, even at 86, lent easy credence to the story told by one of his mates that the chanteyman, entrapped the following evening by several men who were awaiting his return, smashed off the cumbersome part of a chair against a wall and used the long slats to the complete discomfiture of his adversaries.

So with contagious enthusiasm and picturesque symbolism the
chantey singer tells his crew:

I'll put on my long boots, and I'll blow the man down,
Way, hey, blow the man down!
I'll put on my long boots and I'll blow him right down,
Oh, gimmie some time to blow the man down!

As I was a-cruising down Paradise Street,
A flash-looking packet I chanced for to meet.

I fired off my bow gun to make her heave to,
She backed her main topsail. The signal she knew.

I hailed her in English and asked her the news,
"Thia morning from Sally Port, bound for a cruise."

Then I hove out my tow-rope and took her in tow,
And yard-arm to yard-arm to the grog shop did go.
//