1864 The Courier and Argus (Dundee, Scotland) (Aug. 25) : 'Who struck the carpenter?’ … ‘It was the man who sings the song “Blow the Man Down!" '


1868 Hull News (Oct. 10): The words were, 'Give me some time to blow the man down,' and defendant said they were very commonly sung by seamen


1875 Rutland [Vt.] Daily Globe (Oct. 14) :

Give me some time to blow the man down;
I will blow a man down with a big iron club
Give me some time to blow the man down
Ho Ho Hi Ho Ho
Blow the man down, blow the man down.

I’ll blow the man down and pay the fine;
I will blow the man down with a big iron club,
Give me some time to blow the man down.
Ho, Ho, etc."


1876 Adeleine D. T. Whitney, Sights and Insights (Boston: Houghton & Osgood, 1876), [fiction]:

Shall we ever forget the waking, that third bright morning, when the little round port-hole window was all blue with a clear day, and the vessel lay almost quietly on a calm sea, and sailors' voices were singing with a strange, wild thrill of melody, a kind of song-jargon to which at every line the burden was,--'Yea-hey ! Roll the man
down!'?


1880 Yale Record (Oct. 16): Still another shanty, and the most common one, answers:
   
   When you're out on the ocean, you're far from the land
   Cho.: Way-ay, blow the man down.

The verse is repeated with the final chorus:

   Oh, give us some time to blow the man down.


1885 "A Committee of Graduates and Undergraduates" The McGill College Songbook (Montreal: Lamplough) :

As I was going down Paradise street,
   Now away: oh! Blow the man down.
As I was going down Paradise street,
   Give us some time to blow the man down.

[Similarly:]

From larboard to starboard away we did go....


[Two stanzas only - JL]