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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Charley Noble Date: 23 May 07 - 01:58 PM Then there's: Blow ye winds in the morning, Blow ye winds, hi-ho! Clear away the running gear And blow, boys, blow! Or: Blow ye winds westerly, Westerly blow; We're bound for the Southard So steady we go! Most of these "blows" would appear to only refer to the power of the wind, if so inclined. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 23 May 07 - 02:12 PM Lyr. Add: BLACKBALL LINE In the Blackball Line I served my time, Hurrah for the Blackball Line! In the Black Ball Line I served my time, Hurrah for the Blackball Line! The Blackball ships are good and true, Hurrah for the Blackball Line! They are the ships for me and you, Hurrah for the Blackball Line! For once there was a Blackball ship, Hurrah for the Blackball Line! That fourteen knots an hour could clip, Hurrah for the Blackball Line! A boasting song. How much of the verse about strikers, etc., was the invention of boasting blackballers about their tightly run ships? P. A. Hutchison, Mar. 1906, Jour. American Folklore, vol. 19, no. 72, pp. 16-28. Coll. late 19th c. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Barry Finn Date: 23 May 07 - 03:05 PM From "Sea Songs & Shanties" by Capt. Whall, p.69. This (Blow The Man Down) comes from the old Alantic sailing packet ships. "Blow" in those days was equivalent to "knock". The 3rd mate in tose ships was endearingly termed the third "blower and striker", the second mate being the "greaser". "They gave me three months in Walton Jail Way-ay, blow the man down For booting and kicking and blowing him down Give me some time to blow the man down" Barry |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Jim Lad Date: 23 May 07 - 03:21 PM It's a very, very difficult thing, to abandon a preconceived notion even when that notion made no sense. Take your time. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Waddon Pete Date: 23 May 07 - 04:17 PM Well...blow me down! |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,guest - musikman189 Date: 31 May 07 - 01:31 PM I'm curious if anyone knows of chords being added to the chanty. I am interested in teaching part of the song to my children's singing group and they learn more quickly when I accompany with the guitar. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,musikman189 Date: 31 May 07 - 01:55 PM I was thinking about your debate and wondered if you had missed something. There is a tradition in song writing of taking a phrase and making it evolve throughout a song so that each time it's used it means something different. In more formal music traditions it is often done on purpose. In Modern country music Tim Mcgraw wrote a song with the title "Don't Take The Girl" In three verses that phrase means three completely different things....a little boy doesn't want his dad to take the neighbor girl fishing....same boy and girl on a date in later years the boy tells a mugger to take anything he wants but "Don't Take The Girl" and finally in the last verse he begs with deity "Don't Take The Girl" because she has just birthed their child and isn't doing well medically. Though most "SErious" musicians won't admit it their formall structures usually imitate and borrow from the folk and oral traditions around them. It wouldn't be terribly surprising if some of the verses were added by different people with their own interpretations of what they meant. Maybe even on purpose to mean something different. Anyway it was just an idea. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Greg B Date: 31 May 07 - 04:01 PM musikman, Blow the Man down lends itself to a simple 3-chord accompaniment. Now which version of the song will ye be choosin' fer the little bastards, then? Sex, or violence? |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,ShantiMan49 Date: 10 Jun 07 - 10:05 AM Blow me! When youse jokers have finished yer puffin' and blowin' you could siddown and have a blow, then have a fully blown ding dong blow by blow blow fest until yer blown out and blown away. Get below!! But seriously though....Ar forget it....Blowhards avast! Marvellous Mudcat eh? From the sublime to....the invincibly ignorant? Cheer'ly men, ready to go about?! Pax |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: bubblyrat Date: 11 Jun 07 - 07:45 AM What a splendid thread !! Thankyou all, for evoking those images of the great Duncan MacCrae, as Para Handy , nonchalantly leaning over the voice-pipe of the "Vital Spark " and asking, in his inimitable Highland lilt, " Wooed you be geefing me fool ahead, just now ? " Personally, I think that " Blow the man down" is a straightforward corruption. By the days of the great Tea Clippers, like the " Tie Pin", the " Thermocouple", the " Antenna " ( or was it " Aerial " ?) and of course , the "Sooty Shark " ( which is certainly sooty now ), the sailors had become bored with engraving pornographic images onto bits of whalebone,as started by a man called Grimshaw, and were casting around for something else with which to fill their idle hours.As it happens, at about that time, these great ships were carrying numbers of Chinamen in their crews, and someone hit on the idea of learning Chinese from them, so that the crew could converse, and ,indeed, make derogatory remarks of a personal and sensitive nature about the Captain and the Bosuns Mates, without being understood. All went well for a while, but inevitably ,the Masters and Mates got wind ( no comedians, please ) of this , and thus it soon became customary aboard the Clippers, whenever Chinese was heard being spoken, for the Bosun"s Mate to whip out his call, pipe the shrill, and bellow " BELAY THE MANDARIN ! ". Quod Erat Demonstrandum , eh ?? I mean, if that isn"t a plausible explanation, then what is ??? |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Waddon Pete Date: 11 Jun 07 - 10:44 AM Thanks Bubblyrat....Sorted! |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,ShantiMan49 Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:00 AM Perhaps the blowers are on strike (does that make them strikers?) or off watch...I live in Oz and watch, mostly with amusement, the antics of ye Poms and Yanks on 'Cat fora. The good is very good, the bad is ... never mind ... folk of goodwill can always agree to disagree. I have always loved the singing of shanties...so simple, so much fun. The meaning of things is also important, so one explores the literature, non? This thread started as a simple question of meaning for a child's enjoyment. In my experience children enjoy word play for its own sake; my own kids have highly developed sense of the ridiculous, formed largely from the shared frivolous manglement of language. They are also very musical well adjusted social beings... So blow the man any way you want to I say. Last word for Jim Lad though, as the main speaker for the nay. Your own words about pre-conceived notions condemn your opinion, my friend. The Shorter Oxford Dictionary doesn't list anything like the "pipe=up" dream meaning you contend, among many meanings, but does have: "Blow, a stroke; a violent application of the fist or of any instrument to any object." Another meaning is embodied in the Biblical quotation, "Cunninge bloweth, charitie edifieth." Om Shanti |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Charley Noble Date: 11 Jun 07 - 11:50 AM Bubblyrat- "BELAY THE MANDARIN!" Thanks so much for your thoughtful contribution to our discourse. I'm fully satisfied now with your theory, although I suspect, in a half hour or more, I'll be hungry for more insight. Now where did I store my back-up keyboard? Cheerily, Charley Noble, just back form the Mystic Sea Music Festival |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,swamprat Date: 18 May 11 - 10:24 PM It could reference "portuguese man of war". They were greatly feared at one time. Blow the man down/ blow him out of the water. As in down to Davey Jones locker. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Diesel Calhoun Date: 19 May 11 - 02:42 PM As a sailor, I know that the worst thing that can happen underway is to be knocked down by a hard blow. You see when a sudden squall line appears, if you don;t reduce your sail asap the wind will suddenly blow your boat over sideways. Thus, I go with the knock or hit someone. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Derpy Date: 16 Jan 14 - 12:13 AM Hey, though the comments on here appear to be several years old, I would like to provide the correct answer to the question, for anyone else who happens upon this page as I did. "Blow the man down" refers to taking down the main sail of a ship. It was a big job requiring several hands who all had to work in unison. The purpose of the song was to provide a rhythm to keep them in sync. Any song could be used and the words often changed. It was the rhythm that mattered. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 16 Jan 14 - 01:35 AM I have been doing a bit of an overhaul on my notes/references to this song. A few points are of interest. The totality of documented versions make it clear, I think, that "blow" meant "knock," "hit," etc., and the action would be done *by* a person. The "man" to whom the action was done may have been an actual person, however *I* believe it may have been metaphorical, where "man" stands for an item of cargo to be stowed in the hold. There is not enough evidence, to my mind, to support the claim of some 20th c. casual writers that this chanty had a special significance for the Black Ball Line. There was indeed a version sung with a clever narrative about a Black Ball ship, but that's all. And whereas it's possible that for some people the word "blow" took on the idea of getting beat on by the ship's officers, it looks unlikely that that was the original sense. It's the workers singing who are giving the blows. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: MGM·Lion Date: 16 Jan 14 - 03:51 AM But if it is an instruction to someone to strike someone or something, rather than to an imagined & personified heavy wind, it would surely require a very powerful blow or strike to "Blow him right back to Liverpool town", but a particularly heavy breeze could, perhaps, poetic-fancifully & hyperbolically, do so? OTOH if it appears that the blow is to be struck by the whole crew acting in concert {whence, the vocative "bullies"}, then maybe by acting together they could hit him hard enough at that, to achieve a similar effect! Mebbe.... ~M~ |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST Date: 16 Jan 14 - 08:32 AM It simply means to knock him on his ass. They gave me 6 months in Liverpool town for kicking a punching and blowing him down..." |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Lighter Date: 16 Jan 14 - 09:05 AM But, Gibb, would the song really urge people to "knock" cargo into the hold? Since "knocking" things usually involves a stick or a fist, what kind of cargo would be light enough and/or rigid enough to be "knocked" into a hold so routinely that it would be immortalized in song? Particularly when "man" makes perfect sense, and the chantey has nothing to with cargo, including stowing it. And since working sailors could easily inmagine real people, like the bosun, captain, mate, and that moll's fancy man, that they'd just love to knock down. (And, in one version, "kick him around.") "Blow the man down" means to knock somebody over with a gale-force blow. But as I wind up saying all too often, people will read into words whatever they want. Perhaps a red stoplight really means "go," because red is an vivid, energizing, empowering color, while green means relax and think of springtime. ZZZZzzzzzzz. You're ubndoubtedly right about the alleged connection between "Blow the Man Down" and the Black Ball Line being exaggerated. But skippers on rival lines might have discouraged use of the "Black Ball" version aboard their vessels. Sure, the Black Ball version by definition must have been "especially associated with the Black Ball Line," but the number of other versions shows that "Blow the Man Down" in general was not. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 16 Jan 14 - 11:17 AM As I said, the cargo metaphor is just one possibility. The more important point is that the singer(s) are doing the blowing/knocking. So, I accept the idea, Lighter, of the crew wanting to knock down a person — thereby rejecting the idea of the mates being "blowers and strikers" (part of the "This was really popular in the Black Ball Line" narrative). And I doubt something inanimate is blowing them down; it should be the men who are the agents. There is enough evidence, to my mind, to suggest that this song did not originate over deepwater, and so I don't think there is any need to look for explanations in "sailor" stuff. My suggestion of the cargo is inspired by thinking of the workers anthropomorphizing cotton bales and such. As in "Fire Marengo," which is all about cotton-stowing, but which talks of "screw him down and there he'll stay," etc. "Knock" is not necessarily a literally description! See, "knock" won't fit the image of cargo literally, but rather poetically. It doesn't prove anything, but here is are couple verses to consider from Nevis: I hit 'im a lick and I fetch 'im a kick And a yay yay, blow the man down Blow the man down in the hold below 'llow me some time to blow the man down And I blow the man down and I hit the man down Knock de man down in the hold below |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: meself Date: 16 Jan 14 - 12:32 PM ' ... it would surely require a very powerful blow or strike to "Blow him right back to Liverpool town" ...' It would be a cinch for Popeye the Sailorman, with a bit of spinach in him. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: mayomick Date: 17 Jan 14 - 01:06 PM Popeye popularized the song for many people and also the phrase "blow me down with a feather" - an expression of shock. When they were hauling sail the sailors could have been responding with false shock to a yarn spun by the calls of the man who was leading the shanty about what happened to him while he was in Liverpool . Only a guess of course , but it could mean a lot of things including what Jim Lad said about voice tubes , which were around before steam . "About 1780, one captain removed a canvas voice pipe installed by an imaginative midshipman saying he was sure the topmen would "use it for an improper purpose".... wiki |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: mayomick Date: 17 Jan 14 - 02:36 PM Of course a shanty couldn't be sang by a bunch of tars through a voice pipe , so I do go along with what most people are saying about the probable meaning. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an older sail hauling shanty that it was based on - Heave ho haul that sail down , or something like that |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Mark Clark Date: 17 Jan 14 - 02:44 PM I think GUEST,Derpy (16 Jan 14 - 12:13 AM) gave us the correct answer above. It refers to striking (bringing down) the main-sail of a tall ship. In evidence, I offer the following reference found in Google Books: The mention of the "chanty man" reminds me of those peculiarly nautical songs known as chanteys, which are now going out before the advancing use of steam instead of sail all over the Seven Seas. They were originally the songs the sailors sang when hauling up the anchor or pulling in some sheet, and they generally consisted of a recitative and air—the recitative sung by the chantyman alone, and the air, or chorus, joined in with infinite gusto by all the men. There is, for instance, the big main-sheet chantey, whereof the following is a verse:The first was the whale, the king of the sea—Then the chorus— We are now so far removed from the era of the great sailing ships that we attempt to understand forgotten jargon in terms of our modern understanding. When we consider the purpose of such chanteys, GUEST,Derpy's post is really the only answer that makes sense. Northcroft's reference to Blow the Man Down as a "main-sheet chantey" would seem to support GUEST,Derpy's view directly from a time when the jargon was still current. - Mark |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Lighter Date: 18 Jan 14 - 09:40 AM From William Brown Moloney, ex-seaman, in "Everybody's Magazine," 1915: "Aye, first it's a fist and then it's a fall... When you are a sailor aboard a Black Ball... "The meaning of the word 'blow,' as employed at that time, was to strike, to knock. ... "Oh, they gave me three months in Walton's black jail... For blowing and kicking that Bobby to kale. Oh, give us some time to blow the man down." But perhaps Moloney's shipmates were really singing in code about raising sail or being hit with whale-spray or doing naughty things or playing the Big Bad Wolf or who knows what else. And they wouldn't let Moloney in on it. Surely he wouldn't have understood either that "Santa Anna" was really a coded call for slave rebellion, as was suggested on another thread. Of course, if by "means" we're referring not to communication but to any interpretation that could pop into somebody's head, then "blow the man down" means whatever one imagines it to mean. Humpty-Dumpty suggested this method, and people seem to like it. In my opinion, most chantey singers didn't much think about what "nlow the man down" meant. If they did, the vast majority were thinking of winds and fists in varying proportions. Which is good enough for me. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Me Date: 25 Nov 14 - 11:48 AM Old thread but.... If it refers to knocking someone down, why "Give me some time...."? More likely, IMHO, to refer to earning enough dough to pay off the guy who advanced some pay so you could buy sea boots, etc. Taking some time to knock someone down isn't a wise move in the art of fisticuffs. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Joseph Scott Date: 25 Nov 14 - 12:25 PM "If it refers to knocking someone down, why 'Give me some time....'?" Because the song, sung by rough and rowdy men, was about bragging that you enjoy seeking guys to beat up for sport (and to rob them of boots and all). The context in a mention of the song in the _Strand_ magazine in 1904 was this sort of thing: "There's nothin' so good in a fight as.... I cut a policeman all to rags... once...." "Was that the time you done three months...?" Give me some time as in, I hope we don't leave port soon, because I was hoping to beat up _two_ policemen this time and four Dutchmen too. No honest. Probably earlier is the variant printed in 1879, 1883, 1892, 1894, 1895, 1902 with "This is the time to knock a man down." |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Amos Date: 25 Nov 14 - 12:33 PM It seems obvious that there is some elapsed time between the decision to knock down a mouthy deckhand and the execution of the idea in fact. I am impressed, in reviewing this thread, at the sheer obstinacy of the countervailing notion that blowing meant calling someone up on a speaking device. I consider it wrong-headed in light of all the other references provided, but wonderfully adamantine in its wrong-headedness. "Blow" of course also refers to wind, and possibly to dumping sail, but those are different contexts. As for the old epithet, I first heard it as "Well, blow me down and call me shorty!", which supports the knock-down interpretation. A |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Rahere Date: 25 Nov 14 - 01:00 PM Apart from anything else, there's bugger all to be gained from punishing a slacker while he's still out of it. Firstly, how did he manage to get so pissed? Sippers is sippers, but if you've managed to rack up so many, you're probably blagging something. Secondly, we're covering for you - at a price. Put him in the longboat - with the cover over, so no PO will spot you. Secondly, let his ignominy be known, so those he bullied get to see his straightener. You may get to have pulled it this time, but...give us some time to blow the man down. No need for Divisional Orders or worse, we'll sort this, and it bids fair to be memorable. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Joseph Scott Date: 25 Nov 14 - 02:11 PM William Meloney ran away to sea in about 1890, and wrote "The Chanty-Man Sings" for _Everybody's Magazine_, 1915: "The setting of most of the 'Blow The Man Down' chanties, both American and British, was Liverpool.... The meaning of the word 'blow,' as employed at that time, was to strike; to knock." |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: IamNoMan Date: 25 Nov 14 - 10:50 PM Derpy: '"Blow the man down" refers to taking down the main sail of a ship.' As much as I would like to agree with Derpy, and even suggest the original words were or meant Strike the Main(sail)Down. It doesn't hold up to a sailor's scrutiny.. "Blow the Man Down" is a halyard shanty; the purpose of which is to raise sail. "Blow" is a shout which would achieve the greatest exertion at a single point in time. Qi or Ki in oriental parlance. I believe Blowing the man down has two referents. The song originally was a forebitter, not a shanty at all. The original refers to Ratcliffe Road or in most versions Paradise Street. The first destination of most sailors in port, where as often as not the "Flash Packets" would relieve Jack Tar of his hard earned pay by fair means or foul, effectively striking the sailor down. In a later period when the packet ships were competing with steam the harsh discipline exacted by officers in striking men down is doubtless the referent. The Black Ball Line being particularly noted for this type of behavior. Interestingly some earlier posts in this thread refer to Mickey Finn. Mickey Finn was a legendary roustabout and riverboatman cited in "Davy Crockett's Almanack" published in the 1830s. Packetboat service started on the Erie Canal and western rivers around 1825. The one story I specifically recall about Mickey Finn is "Trimming a Darkies Heal", A particularly nasty bit of work about a very evil fellow. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Joseph Scott Date: 26 Nov 14 - 01:04 PM "I believe Blowing the man down has two referents.... [T]he 'Flash Packets' would relieve Jack Tar of his hard earned pay by fair means or foul, effectively striking the sailor down. In a later period... the harsh discipline exacted by officers in striking men down is doubtless the referent." So in "I'm a Flying-Fish sailor.... You've robbed a poor Dutchman...," the sailor is who? An officer? |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: IamNoMan Date: 26 Nov 14 - 04:15 PM "So in "I'm a Flying-Fish sailor.... You've robbed a poor Dutchman...," the sailor is who? An officer?" "And you've robbed some poor Dutchman of his clothes, boots and all!'' This is exactly the what I suggested. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Lighter Date: 30 Nov 14 - 09:34 AM I believe you mean "Mike Fink," not "Mickey Finn." Finn was a Chicago bartender before the First World War, who was indicted for drugging and robbing customers. |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: GUEST,Robert Goodman Date: 15 Mar 22 - 05:54 PM 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? |
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Subject: RE: What does blow the man down mean? From: Gibb Sahib Date: 15 Mar 22 - 08:58 PM "Give us some time to stow this cargo" "Give us some time to set this sail" These sound natural enough to me as language in song. I could elaborate, but it would all just be an inarticulate jumble of what intuitively sounds "natural" to me personally as (American?) English song/poetic rhetoric—and not very persuasive. If there was a context for the song prior to a work context, maybe it was a play context. A group game. Like, the kids stand around in the circle, one kid stands in the center, they all sing, and another participant tries to knock down the kid in the center. Or an adult fighting game. No evidence for that, but there is a pattern of songs from this repertoire having a play-song or crossover application, like this stick-fighting song and "Coming Down with a Bunch of Roses" (> "Come Down, You Bunch of Roses" > the folklorized "Blood Red Roses"): https://youtu.be/LS1McrmSzHA |
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