Night Bus Showtunes: Sixty-Second Songs for the Gloomiest Commute

There is a particular mood to a November commute. It is dark when you leave the house, dark when you get to the office and possibly dark again by the time you find your keys. The bus is steamed up, the Tube is warm in a slightly suspicious way and everyone is staring at their phones with the expression of people who have forgotten what daylight looks like.

This is not a problem. This is a stage.

Commute karaoke is a one-minute imagination game for your journey. You are not actually going to stand up and belt out a show tune between stops. Please do not do that. Instead, you are going to imagine the musical number that could happen around you. It is a tiny creative break disguised as public transport.

The rules of the invisible orchestra

Pick a moment on your journey. Set a mental timer for sixty seconds. Imagine the scene in front of you bursts into song. Who sings first? What is the song called? What is the big finish?

You can keep your lyrics in your head, type them in your notes app or scribble them on the back of a receipt. The only real rules are: keep it short, keep it kind and keep it quiet enough that you do not alarm the person beside you. This is a private West End, not an actual flash mob.

Prompt one: the passenger chorus

Look around the bus or carriage. Choose three people and turn them into a chorus. The person with the enormous coat. The one eating a pastry with tremendous focus. The one wearing headphones but clearly listening to nothing. What is their opening line?

Maybe they are singing about the rain. Maybe they are singing about the fact that the bus is displaying the wrong destination. Maybe they are a Greek chorus for the person who has just realised they left their umbrella at home. In sixty seconds, write four lines for your passenger chorus. It does not need to rhyme. It just needs to sound like the inside of a commute.

Prompt two: the delayed-train mini-musical

Delays are the natural enemies of commuters and the natural friends of musical theatre. A platform announcement is basically a dramatic pause. A signal failure is a plot twist. A replacement bus service is the bit where the audience groans.

Your challenge: write the opening number of a tiny musical called something like Delayed Again or The Platform Two Blues. You have one minute. Give it a title, a first line and a big finish. The big finish can be as simple as everyone raising a paper coffee cup in solidarity. Keep it cheerful, keep it short and do not worry if it would never get past a theatre critic.

Prompt three: the shoulder-sleeper lyric

Someone has fallen asleep on your shoulder. This is the most intimate and awkward moment public transport can offer. Do not mock them. Write them a gentle one-minute lyric instead.

What are they dreaming about? Are they travelling home after a long shift? Are they about to miss their stop? Is their head bobbing in time to a song only they can hear? A good commute lyric is kind, specific and slightly funny. One minute, four lines, one very sleepy stranger. That is the whole task.

The clap-o-meter

Once you have written your number, rate it with the clap-o-meter. This is not scientific. It is not even slightly fair. It is just a way to decide whether your sixty-second show tune deserves a polite nod or a full imaginary standing ovation.

Give yourself one clap for each of these:

• It has a title you would actually remember.
• It contains one line that sounds like real life on public transport.
• It has a beginning, a middle and some sort of finish.
• It made you smile before your stop arrived.
• You would be willing to hum it quietly to yourself on the walk to work.

One or two claps means you have made a start. Three or four means you have a proper little number. Five claps means your commute has just become a fringe show. There is no prize beyond the quiet satisfaction of having made something out of a dark November morning.

Why tiny songs work

Songs are just stories with a bit of rhythm. A minute is enough to catch a mood, a character or a very specific complaint about the 07:42. You do not need a piano, a stage or an audience. You need a bus window, a bit of rain and the willingness to look at your fellow passengers as if they might suddenly start harmonising.

It also takes the edge off the gloom. A delayed train is still a delayed train, but if you have spent sixty seconds turning it into a musical number, it becomes material. The dark mornings are still dark, but your commute now has a soundtrack.

So next time you are wedged between a rucksack and the doors, give yourself one minute. Imagine the opening chord. Let the passenger chorus begin. Then get off at your stop like a normal person, because the show is strictly in your head.