Steve Earle — The Randall Knife

[Verse 1] My father had a Randall knife My mother gave it to him When he went off to World War II To save us all from ruin If you've ever held a Randall knife You know my father well If a better blade was ever made It was probably forged in hell [Verse 2] My father was a good man A lawyer by his trade Only once did I ever see him Misuse the blade It almost cut his thumb off When he took it for a tool Ah, the knife was made for darker things You could not bend the rules [Verse 3] He let me take it camping once On a Boy Scout jamboree And I broke a half-an-inch off Tryin' to stick it in a tree I hid it from him for a while But the knife and he were one And he just put it in his bottom drawer Without a hard word won There it slept and there it stayed For twenty some-odd years Sort of like Excalibur Except waiting for a tear [Verse 4] Now my father died when I was forty And I couldn't find a way to cry Not because I didn't love him Not because I didn't try I'd cried for every lesser thing Whiskey, pain, and beauty But he deserved a better tear I was not quite ready [Verse 5] So we took his ashes out to sea And poured 'em off the stern And then threw the roses in the wave Of everything we'd learned And when we got back to the house And they asked me what I wanted Not the law books, not the watch I need the things he's haunted Aw, my hand burned for the Randall knife There in the bottom drawer And I found a tear for my father's life And everything he stood for