Bus Songs

Sit inside an Indian village bus and let the driver's tape deck play. Five routes, five languages, 632 songs — free, in the browser, with nothing to sign up for.

The page opens inside the bus rather than in front of it: one painted cabin, the road moving through the windscreen, a destination board over it and the player in the middle. The light follows your own clock — the fields are bright at nine in the morning, the sun is going down the road ahead at six, and by ten it is dark with the tube light on. Under the music there is an engine, the road, and rain if you ask for it, all synthesised, all switchable.

The five routes

• Tamil · 160 songs — Kumbakonam to Karaikudi, via Thanjavur and Pudukkottai
• Telugu · 120 songs — Vijayawada to Rajahmundry, via Eluru and Tanuku
• Malayalam · 118 songs — Thrissur to Guruvayur, via Kunnamkulam and Chavakkad
• Kannada · 116 songs — Mysuru to Madikeri, via Hunsur and Kushalnagar
• Hindi · 118 songs — Varanasi to Chunar, via Ramnagar and Adalpura

Every track, with the channel it comes from and a link to the original, is on the Bus Songs songbook.

Controls

The player has four buttons — seek, previous, play, next — and the ticket-stub chips along the bottom switch route. Space plays and pauses, ← and → change track, S reshuffles, M turns the bus sound off, ↑ and ↓ change the volume. The address bar takes ?lang=tamil, ?rain=1 for the monsoon and ?t=18.5 to pin the hour, so a particular ride can be sent to somebody.

Bus Songs needs JavaScript — the bus does not move otherwise. Music is streamed from YouTube through the official player.