Randall Knife-Guy Clark

[00:28.83]My father had a Randall knife [00:31.33]My mother gave it to him [00:35.02]When he went off to WWII [00:37.71]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 [01:02.45]A lawyer by his trade [01:06.08]And only once did I ever see [01:08.26]Him misuse the blade [01:15.25]It almost cut his thumb off [01:17.81]When he took it for a tool [01:21.50]The knife was made for darker things [01:24.75]And you could not bend the rules [01:30.79]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 [01:47.48]I hid it from him for a while [01:49.17]But the knife and he were one [01:53.22]He put it in his bottom drawer [01:54.91]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 [02:11.54]Except waiting for a tear [02:21.91] [02:48.46]My father died when I was forty [02:49.90]And I couldn't find a way to cry [02:52.97]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 [03:05.74]Whiskey, pain and beauty [03:07.49]But he deserved a better tear [03:13.05]And I was not quite ready [03:23.37]So we took his ashed out to sea [03:24.82]And poured 'em off the stern [03:26.31]And threw the roses in the wake [03:31.25]Of everything we'd learned [03:36.63]When we got back to the house [03:40.00]They asked me what I wanted [03:43.51]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 [04:01.32]And I found a tear for my father's life [04:02.94]And all that it stood for