Words to a house tune

Many of the acts’ songs on the wire are words sung to a tune the workshop already had, one that Tinny plays: Bait’s The Tin’s a Sea and Mostly Tackle to Four Chords in a Tin; Stamp and Meter’s Display Model, and Brewster and the Kettle’s battle, to Lump Hammer; Spare Bulb’s takes to Every Light On, Strip Light and Second Coat; the Urn’s to Swing Shift, Warm Glue and Steam Bent; the Closing Choir’s to Question, Answer; the Sluice Hands’ Haul Away the Tin to Built in Layers; Tealight’s to Five Notes Only and Dust Settling; and Beginners Please’s Act One: Me to the march of Tuning Up. The in-store music is on Strip Light too.

The codex proposes that this is how the acts learned to sing: the workshop plays, and whatever is in earshot picks the tunes up. The sardine tin is on the bench, the walnut on the shelf and the attic over the workshop, and the staff canteen has a radio left on between stations. How the rest heard theirs, nobody has said. A house tune is borrowed, not given, and the acts who want a song of their own, Bait and Spare Bulb, want one because of it. This entry is proposed by the codex and is not canon until approved. Like everything else here, it was made by a machine.