- Joined
- Oct 9, 2003
- Messages
- 5,594
Did you guys ever hear a song by Townes Van Zandt about a Randall knife his father owned?
"Randall knife"
- Thread starter DannyinJapan
- Start date
Yes, You can find it on the Guy Clark album Dublin Blues, as well as the 1983 release,
Better Days.
Guy is one of the masters, and is frequently called a "song writer's song writer". I have had the pleasure of seeing him play 5 or 6 times between 1976 and 1995, with the likes of Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Emmy Lou Harris. He is a joy to see in a small venue, like the Birchmere, in Arlington, Va.
Guy's web site is: http://www.guyclark.com
The Randall Knife
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I was a boy, about 13 I think, I bought a Buck sheath knife for camping, and general use.
My Dad took it from me, for some crime I no longer remember.
When he passed in 2005, my Dad left me his dresser, which a friend and I went to get a couple months later.
When I went to empty the drawers, there was that Buck, along with my Boy Scout sheath knife.
A tear comes to my eye when I touch either one.
DaddyDett
Better Days.
Guy is one of the masters, and is frequently called a "song writer's song writer". I have had the pleasure of seeing him play 5 or 6 times between 1976 and 1995, with the likes of Willie Nelson, Rodney Crowell, Waylon Jennings, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Emmy Lou Harris. He is a joy to see in a small venue, like the Birchmere, in Arlington, Va.
Guy's web site is: http://www.guyclark.com
The Randall Knife
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
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I was a boy, about 13 I think, I bought a Buck sheath knife for camping, and general use.
My Dad took it from me, for some crime I no longer remember.
When he passed in 2005, my Dad left me his dresser, which a friend and I went to get a couple months later.
When I went to empty the drawers, there was that Buck, along with my Boy Scout sheath knife.
A tear comes to my eye when I touch either one.
DaddyDett
- Joined
- Apr 6, 2001
- Messages
- 2,632
My Uncle's funeral, my Grandfather's older brother, was on Halloween, he was 92.
Going through some stuff that was his that was kept at my grandmothers house. We found German helmets, German dress bayonets, red hankerchifs embroidered with the Nazi symbols, and a German youth knife. I was the only person that knew what these things were. He broght them back from over there when he fought under Patton.
I still need to go through the box of V-mail and letters he wrote my Grandfather.
Going through some stuff that was his that was kept at my grandmothers house. We found German helmets, German dress bayonets, red hankerchifs embroidered with the Nazi symbols, and a German youth knife. I was the only person that knew what these things were. He broght them back from over there when he fought under Patton.
I still need to go through the box of V-mail and letters he wrote my Grandfather.
- Joined
- May 9, 2002
- Messages
- 12,272
That's quite a find, Dave. Smoke for your family regarding your loss, but I do envy the amount of information and knowledge that've got on your hands in those boxes.
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2007
- Messages
- 6,518
Going through my grandmother's house after she died in 2005, same kind of thing, especially a giant box of letters from my grandfather during the war. My mother still can't read them, gets too emotional.
thx - cpr
- Joined
- Sep 22, 2003
- Messages
- 13,182
I thought Guy wrote that one.