Guy Clark – Randall Knife (Guitar)

D                                                 Em
My father had a Randall knife, my mother gave it to him

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When he went off to WWII to save us all from ruin

D                                        Em
Now if you've ever held a Randall knife, you know my father well

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If a better blade was ever made, it was probably forged in hell

D                                            Em
My father was a good man, he was a lawyer by his trade

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And only once did I ever see him misuse the blade

D                                 Em
Well, it almost cut his thumb off when he took it for a tool

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Ah, the knife was made for darker things and could not bend the rules

D                                Em
He let me take it camping once on a Boy Scout jamboree

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And I broke a half an inch off trying to stick it in a tree

D                             Em
I hid it from him for a while but the knife and he were one

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He put it in his bottom drawer without a hard word one

D                                      Em
And there it slept and there it stayed For twenty some odd years

A                      G                     D
Sort of like Excalibur except waiting for a tear

D                               Em
My father died when I was forty and I couldn't find a way to cry

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Not because I didn't love him not and not because he didn't try

D                                                  Em
I'd cried for every lesser thing, for Whiskey, pain and beauty

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But he deserved a better tear and I was not quite ready

D                               Em
So we took his ashes out to sea and poured 'em off the stern

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And threw the roses in the wake of everything we'd learned

D                                  Em
And when we got back to the house, they asked me what I wanted

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Not the lawbooks, not the watch, I need the things he's haunted

D                                    Em
My hand burned for the Randall knife there in the bottom drawer

A                                       G                       D
And I found a tear for my father's life and all that it stood for