My Father Had A Randall Knife
My Mother Gave It To Him
When He Went Off To WWII
To Save Us All From Ruin
If You've Ever Held A Randall Knife
Then You Know My Father Well
If A Better Blade Was Ever Made
It Was Probably Forged In Hell

My Father Was A Good Man
A Lawyer By His Trade
And Only Once Did I Ever See
Him Misuse The Blade
It Almost Cut His Thumb Off
When He Took It For A Tool
The Knife Was Made For Darker Things
And You Could Not Bend The Rules

He Let Me Take It Camping Once
On A Boy Scout Jamboree
And I Broke A Half An Inch Off
Trying To Stick It In A Tree
I Hid It From Him For A While
But The Knife And He Were One
He Put It In His Bottom Drawer
Without A Hard Word One

There It Slept And There It Stayed
For Twenty Some Odd Years
Sort Of Like Excalibur
Except Waiting For A Tear

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 He Didn't Try
I'd Cried For Every Lesser Thing
Whiskey, Pain And Beauty
But He Deserved A Better Tear
And I Was Not Quite Ready

So We Took His Ashed Out To Sea
And Poured `em Off The Stern
And Threw The Roses In The Wake
Of Everything We'd Learned
When We Got Back To The House
They Asked Me What I Wanted
Not The Lawbooks Not The Watch
I Need The Things He's Haunted

My Hand Burned For The Randall Knife
There In The Bottom Drawer
And I Found A Tear For My Father's Life
And All That It Stood For