Guy Clark – The Randall Knife

Finding Guy Clark in the past few years has been amazing. Song after song that I can relate to with words that always fit. I lost my dad in 2005, so I can totally relate to this song. I have some of his tools for making guitars and an old wooden case he made for them.  This song brought back a lot of memories. This song is a true story song in every sense of the word. I’m usually a little more hesitant on partial talking songs…but this one is a winner.

The song was on the album Dublin Blues, which was released in 1995. The musicians on this album were staggering. Rodney Crowell, Ramblin’ Jack Elliot, Nanci Griffith, Emmylou Harris, Kathy Mattea, and more. This song closed the album, and that’s where it belongs because it would have been hard to follow this song. 

The song centers on a knife passed down from his father, a Randall Made Knives blade with history behind it. Clark doesn’t treat it like an object; it’s more like a stand-in for memory and loss. He talks about using it, holding it, and what it meant to his dad. By the end, the knife becomes a way of holding on to someone who’s gone.

The arrangement stays simple, and nothing pulls attention from the lyric. You can hear the same mindset in writers like Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle, where detail matters more than volume. Every line feels and is important.

It’s about one knife, one father, one set of memories. But it doesn’t stay there. Anyone who’s held on to something after losing someone will recognize it. Clark never says more than he needs to, and that’s the reason it holds up. 

The Randall Knife

My father had a Randall knifeMy mother gave it to himWhen he went off to World War IITo save us all from ruinNow if you’ve ever held a Randall knifeYou’ll know my father wellAnd if a better blade was ever madeIt was probably forged in hell

My father was a good manHe was a lawyer by his tradeAnd only once did I ever seeHim misuse the bladeWell, it almost cut his thumb offWhen he took it for a toolThe knife was made for darker thingsYou could not bend the rules

Well, he let me take it camping onceOn a Boy Scout jamboreeAnd I broke a half an inch offTrying to stick it in a treeWell, I hid it from him for a whileBut the knife and he were oneHe put it in his bottom drawerWithout a hard word one

There it slept and there it stayedFor 20 some odd yearsSort of like ExcaliburExcept waiting for a tear

My father died when I was 40And I couldn’t find a way to cryNot because I didn’t love himNot because he didn’t tryWell, I’d cried for every lesser thingWhiskey, pain and beautyBut he deserved a better tearAnd I was not quite ready

So we took his ashes out to seaAnd poured ’em off the sternAnd then threw the roses in the wakeOf everything we’d learnedAnd when we got back to the houseThey asked me what I wantedNot the law books, not the watchI need the things he’s haunted

My hand burned for the Randall knifeThere in the bottom drawerAnd I found a tear for my father’s lifeAnd all that it stood for

Unknown's avatar

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

46 thoughts on “Guy Clark – The Randall Knife”

  1. A powerful tune capturing the objects and feelings that bring a father and son together. I have my grandfathers, great grandfathers’ violin, my father’s violin, and two of my grandfather’s pocketknives, Keepsakes that will never leave the family and the thoughts they still hold dearly.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    2. What is it with old jackknives? I guess like Guy’s story they conjure up images, memories. I know his memories about breaking off a half inch. Like it was yesterday. Guy even put in some fiddle for you on that like cut Phil

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  2. Pingback: Guy Clark – The Randall Knife – MobsterTiger

  4. My father was given a gold watch for 25 years of service with the same company and he said that since I was his eldest son, he gave it to me. I didn’t take very good care of it, and it was stolen when I left it on my desk at work, probably by the cleaning crew and ZZI really wish I still had it, even though I don’t wear a watch anymore.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

  5. A beautiful song from somebody who wrote so many of them. The Guy Clark catalog is a wonderful library of moments and instances that have filled my soul for the past 20 or so years.

    This is a very personal song that can be shared by everyone. My father wasn’t like the guy in this song, he never had a knife like this. But this song evokes something in me that brings up good memories of my father. There is a whole lot of things Clark wrote about that I find myself sharing the emotion even if the experience is foreign.

    Thanks for sharing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. After writing this…I do have my dad’s tools…and with them came not one but two pocket knives…that just popped in my mind now.
      Yea it brings up good feelings with my dad as well.

      Like

      Reply

      3. A friend told me about an album he was listening to a few tears ago called ‘Guy’ by Earle. He was blown away. He had never heard of Clark. Youn cab gets caught in this loop for a long time. How about years of great listening

        Liked by 1 person

  8. My intro to Guy Clark was via Jerry Jeff Walker’s 1972 album that included Clark’s “That Old Time Feelin'” (“And that old time feelin’ goes sneakin’ down the hall/
    Like an old gray cat in winter, keepin’ close to the wall”) and “LA Freeway” (“If I can just get off of that LA freeway/Without gettin’ killed or caught”) .

    Guy Clark knows how to tell a story.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  9. Amazing song from a stellar songwriter. Vince Gill played on the original, and had just lost his father at the time. He did a version for a tribute album to Guy and said he and Guy were “tied through the hip” by that song.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  10. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a Randall knife until I heard this song. My given name is actually Randall! It’s one of my most favourite Guy Clarke songs, which as you know is a task to try and short list them. I lost my father and father in law in the same week in February of 94, and our second daughter was born on the 27th. So this song was rather timely. I just don’t know if there’s anyone else that can tell a story and make you feel your living in it. I can vividly picture that drawer as though I pulled it open and looked at the knife myself.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. I just heard this recently…and yes it had the same affect on me. I can see that knife in the drawer. What I forgot to put in my post…along with those tools were 2 pocket knives I had from my dad.
      I didn’t know whether to be sad or happy when I heard it….but I’ll never forget it.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Finding those knives would certainly hit home. It’s cool you have those. And the unique guitar making tools. I don’t have any knives but I do have the pair of his tin snips that I used when my father taught me how to properly cut sheet metal when I was a teenager.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. That works…something to remind you and keep them alive in a different way. I’ve thought about restoring that wood case of my dads…it’s starting to age…new hinges and things like that.

        Liked by 1 person

  11. Max, I first heard this one by chance on Together at the Bluebird Café live album with Guy, Townes, and Steve. Had me crying like a baby then and tearing up again today listening to it. I know that Steve wrote, Taneytown, and it includes a Randall knife. I wonder if Townes ever wrote about one?

    Good write-up, Max. Remembering the small details that aren’t so small about beloved people who have passed on is crucial to keeping them alive. You make me think of my own dad with this post/song.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you….I’ve went to the Bluebird Cafe…wish I could have seen that.
      When I was writing this all I did was think of my dad. I was telling CB…a song like this can be corny but not in the hands of a great songwriter… it still works.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. Not much more to add. The writing is spare without being terse, as you say not a word extra put in that wasn’t needed.

    On a personal note after my father died me and the girls, my Mum, two brothers, one sister-in-law and Dad’s sister met up and spread his ashes on Big Bear Lake, where he had often fished with my brothers. We all said a few words as we each dropped in some ashes and watched them drift and shift wherever the current went. I said a few wry words about a sad yet funny story involving Dad and then realised that Dads little half-forgotten story could die here as well if it wasn’t retold. That was the day I seriously decided to write properly, at least in my fashion. One last gift he sort of handed me I suppose.😑

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Thanks for that story obbverse. Something like that affects you in different ways…I didn’t go to work for a week…I was in shock…but I did learn more about me and him….that inspired you to take that gift.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment