I tend to expect that other people like to hear music as much as I do. But events often suggest that many people are more interested in the idea of being in a place where music is being performed, regardless of what they can or can't hear.

For example, I played recently in an art gallery, with no amp. After I'd been playing for a while, everyone gravitated to the room I was in, and stayed there, all talking at once, for over an hour. They created a bedlam so loud I could barely hear my own guitar. Yet people kept coming over to tell me how much they enjoyed the music. I guess they were enjoying the experience, though not the actual sound. On the plus side, it meant I could play whatever I wanted.

And many years ago I found myself in an Irish bar in Kansas City where a blues band was playing in the back room so loudly that you could hear them at about the same volume as the music playing on the stereo in the bar. The combination was a bizarre and extremely unpleasant noise. I asked the bartender why he didn't turn off the stereo while the band was playing. He gave me a menacing look and said that the music on the stereo was for the people in the bar. Here again, the idea of music was what mattered. The people in the bar were paying customers and were entitled to music, even if it was impossible to enjoy.

Perhaps the preference people express for cover songs is related to this. It allows them to participate actively in the visual experience of being where live music is being performed -- by requesting a particular song, or simply knowing whether they should like the music or not.