As a working musician, I earn part of my crust as a wedding pianist, and as a singer / keys / errant sax player in a couple of function bands.
And those of you who are in function bands will know that there are certain songs that have been done to death by bands over the years, and still - inexplicably - get played at just about every wedding in the UK. At some point I need to write a paper on this: why do some songs stick to the heel of wedding bands like toilet roll, and others don't.
Of course, some of them are great songs! Superstition by Stevie Wonder (1972), for example, is a belter. But I think I might have played it more times than Stevie himself, and I never want to hear it again. Which is a shame, as it's awesome.
Then you get songs like Play That Funky Music by Wild Cherry, from 1976. I could put together a 3 hour set of songs just from 1976 that are better than that absolute turd of a record, and yet for some reason it's still being played now, in 2019.
And then there are the massive hits of the day that - good or bad - get very old very quickly. Happy by Pharrell Williams, for example, outstayed its welcome. As did Get Lucky, as it happens.
But of course, there is nothing new under the sun. In a curious anthology of prose and verse called The Tees Tickler, published in County Durham in 1867, I came across "The Lament of the Ballad-Singer", in which what is essentially a jaded 19th century muso complains about all the garbage (in his opinion, of course!) he is forced to sing at parties.
The moral of the story: stop whining, Falconer - it doesn't help anybody!
Cover image of Edward Christopher Sheeran MBE ©Eva Rinaldi, 2013