A friend’s music selection on Spotify prompted recall of changes in my my own tastes across the years. A friend from school days once commented, “Do you know what I Remembered about you? How you loved all of those soul tracks.” For me, it wasn’t a bad way for an otherwise socially awkward teenager to be remembered.

Admitting to a liking of the soul tracks has never been easy. There was a night a few years ago when having watched a Munster rugby match at Thomond Park in Limerick, I …