When a song goes from hated to favourite

I always chose the repertoire for my community choirs. Most people knew what my taste was, which is why they’d joined the choir in the first place. But every now and then I would introduce a new song and it just wouldn’t take. I used to pride myself on having a sense of what kind of songs my singers liked. Each choir was different, but each had a particular flavour. Occasionally, when I introduced a new song, I could tell very quickly that the singers didn’t like it. Maybe the harmonies were too strange, the lyrics too difficult, or they didn’t like the tune. When I started my first community choir way back in 1997, I initially avoided songs in foreign languages. But over time I would introduce the odd Georgian or Croatian song. They were almost always met with groans and eye rolling. However, I persisted and would bring the songs back from time to time. Then I noticed a strange phenomenon: what started out as a song that everyone really hated, eventually become one of the choir’s…