The Wide and Short (Choad)

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
Right. Let me set the scene for you.
East London. Call it 1985.
The air is thick enough to chew. Smoke and stale ale.
A man's breath hangs in the alleyway when he steps out for a fag.
This is where the real dictionary gets written.
Not by chaps in dusty offices.
But here. Over a sticky table, under a weak yellow light.
Where precision matters.

[Chorus]
You can't just use any old word. That's lazy.
There's a taxonomy to it, you see. A proper filing system.
And for the short and the wide... for the stout...
The one that’s more stump than it is tree...
There's a word for that. A perfect word.
The category is: choad.

[Verse 2]
Some say it came from a tool handle. A stubby little thing.
Something you'd find in a joiner's box in the early 1900s.
Makes sense, don't it? Words travel.
From the workshop to the driver of the butcher's rusty van.
Old Eric Partridge, he knew. He wrote it all down.
Got a copy of his book right here.
Spine's cracked, smells of the bar.
Page one-forty-two. Look it up.

[Chorus]
You can't just use any old word. That's lazy.
There's a taxonomy to it, you see. A proper filing system.
And for the short and the wide... for the stout...
The one that’s more stump than it is tree...
There's a word for that. A perfect word.
The category is: choad.

[Bridge]
It's not about being crude, not really.
It's about having the right tool for the job.
The right label for the specimen.
A folk science, passed down on a beermat.
A shared understanding in a world that don't make much sense.
We name the parts. Give 'em their due.
Even the ones we're not supposed to mention.

[Outro]
Yeah.
The jukebox is playing something about a lost love.
The bottom of the pint glass is near.
But the word...
The word is still there.
Hanging in the smoke.
Choad.