The Randall Knife

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
 
 My father was a good man
 A lawyer by his trade
 Only once did I ever see him
 Misuse the blade
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 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
 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
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 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 one
 There it slept and there it stayed
 For twenty some-odd years
 Sort of like Excalibur
 Except waiting for a tear
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 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
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 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