Some tunes don't burn out. About a month ago, traveling toward church where I play organ, I heard Ralph Vaughan-Williams "Variations on Divers & Lazarus." Perfect, a modal tune that touches down at unsuspected points, but continues to move in a rather normal scalar and sequential pattern. I listened carefully and decided to use the tune for a communion improvisation. The sound crystalized instantly in my head. When I got home I worked it out on the guitar clawhammer style in A minor. Later I realized that I used to hear John Roberts and Tony Barrand sing that same version of Divers & Lazarus, but since LP's died and the Best of Nowell Sing We Clear didn't include it. Being a contra dancer and a waltz buff, it again hit me that the tune was also "Star of the County Down" to which I had long waltzed. Of course the rhythm had changed to 3/4 from 4/4, as I suspect "Divers & Lazarus was the earlier of the two songs.

Point is that some tunes are inately good and don't burnout of themselves. They re-emerge in new contexts. With a good theme, a musician can recreate multiple aspects of that same tune. You might say that good tunes long to show their infinite expressions and meanings.

So if someone is playing the same (*_*$&^) song for the umteenth time, don't let it burn out. Change it. This can be done vocally just as, or maybe more, easily as instrumentally. The measure of a tune is how long it can change itself.