The Randall Knife-Guy Clark

[ti:The Randall Knife] [ar:Guy Clark] [al:Songs and Stories] [by:] [offset:0] [00:28.82]My father had a Randall knife [00:31.32]My mother gave it to him [00:35.02]When he went off to WWII [00:37.70]To save us all from ruin [00:43.51]If you've ever held a Randall knife [00:46.33]Then you know my father well [00:50.08]If a better blade was ever made [00:52.76]It was probably forged in hell [00:59.51]My father was a good man [01:02.44]A lawyer by his trade [01:06.07]And only once did I ever see [01:08.26]Him misuse the blade [01:15.24]It almost cut his thumb off [01:17.81]When he took it for a tool [01:21.49]The knife was made for darker things [01:24.74]And you could not bend the rules [01:30.78]He let me take it camping once [01:33.85]On a Boy Scout jamboree [01:34.85]And I broke a half an inch off [01:40.29]Trying to stick it in a tree [01:47.47]I hid it from him for a while [01:49.16]But the knife and he were one [01:53.22]He put it in his bottom drawer [01:54.90]Without a hard word one [01:58.53]There it slept and there it stayed [02:05.06]For twenty some odd years [02:09.04]Sort of like Excalibur [02:11.53]Except waiting for a tear [02:21.91] [02:48.46]My father died when I was forty [02:49.89]And I couldn't find a way to cry [02:52.96]Not because I didn't love him [02:56.77]Not because he didn't try [03:00.60]I'd cried for every lesser thing [03:05.73]Whiskey pain and beauty [03:07.48]But he deserved a better tear [03:13.05]And I was not quite ready [03:23.36]So we took his ashed out to sea [03:24.81]And poured 'em off the stern [03:26.31]And threw the roses in the wake [03:31.25]Of everything we'd learned [03:36.62]When we got back to the house [03:40.00]They asked me what I wanted [03:43.50]Not the lawbooks not the watch [03:45.75]I need the things he's haunted [03:53.00]My hand burned for the Randall knife [03:55.88]There in the bottom drawer [04:01.31]And I found a tear for my father's life [04:02.94]And all that it stood for