The Randall Knife-Guy Clark

[00:29.30]My father had a Randall knife [00:33.66] My mother gave it to him [00:36.34] When he went off to WWII [00:39.97] To save us all from ruin [00:46.29] If you've ever held a Randall knife [00:49.31] Then you know my father well [00:52.75] If a better blade was ever made [00:56.50] It was probably forged in hell [00:59.19] [01:03.35] My father was a good man [01:06.40] A lawyer by his trade [01:09.69] And only once did I ever see [01:13.66] Him misuse the blade [01:18.70] It almost cut his thumb off [01:23.46] When he took it for a tool [01:26.79] The knife was made for darker things [01:30.52] And you could not bend the rules [01:34.43] [01:36.91] He let me take it camping once [01:40.59] On a Boy Scout jamboree [01:43.77] And I broke a half an inch off [01:47.27]Trying to stick it in a tree [01:53.46] I hid it from him for a while [01:56.61] But the knife and he were one [02:00.20] He put it in his bottom drawer [02:04.27] Without a hard word one [02:07.88] [02:10.73] There it slept and there it stayed [02:14.12] For twenty some odd years [02:18.46] Sort of like Excalibur [02:21.68] Except waiting for a tear [02:24.96] [02:57.70] My father died when I was forty [03:01.30] And I couldn't find a way to cry [03:04.85] Not because I didn't love him [03:08.30] Not because he didn't try [03:13.17] I'd cried for every lesser thing [03:17.15] For Whiskey, pain and beauty [03:21.85] But he deserved a better tear [03:24.82] And I was not quite ready [03:28.56] [03:31.85] So we took his ashed out to sea [03:35.44] And poured `em off the stern [03:39.17] And threw the roses in the wake [03:42.30] Of everything we'd learned [03:48.81] When we got back to the house [03:52.41] They asked me what I wanted [03:56.40] Not the lawbooks not the watch [04:00.18] I need the things he's haunted [04:02.68] [04:04.57] My hand burned for the Randall knife [04:09.31] There in the bottom drawer [04:13.41] And I found a tear for my father's life [04:17.10] And all that it stood for