Here are the results. Just under 300 songs have made at least 5 appearances in the nearly 800 sets in the archive, through today. First a couple of words on methodology. I did find & remove from consideration 6 'Classic' sets that were in fact dupes of a set already in the Db. I didn't take into consideration the gaps in Darryl's setlist collection, which was simply too much work. I did take into consideration tunes that show up largely in annual theme sets, such as "The Simple Life", "Hot Fun in the Summertime" or "Fisherman's Blues" and unless they had at least 5 appearances in 'year-themed' sets they didn't make the list (which knocked over a dozen songs out, btw). I did count an appearance in a Vertical Tasting in the total. Once in a while Dave plays a song in the wrong year, and I didn't take that into consideration once I looked at my worst offenders, because they uniformly weren't in that category. But a significant proportion of songs in the 5-7 range were 'straddlers'.
Okay, to the results. The following songs had 8 or more Total Appearances:
Fine Young Cannibals - Good Thing, 1989 - 12
Robbie Nevil - C'est La Vie, 1987 - 11
Church - Metropolis, 1990 - 10
Crowded House - Sister Madly, 1988 - 10
Re-Flex - Politics of Dancing, 1984 - 10
Terence Trent D'Arby - Wishing Well, 1988 - 10
Crowded House - Something So Strong, 1987 - 9
Dwight Twilley - I'm On Fire, 1975 - 9
Huey Lewis & the News - The Power of Love, 1985 - 9
Men at Work - Who Can it Be Now?, 1982 - 9
Missing Persons - Words, 1982 - 9
Psychedelic Furs - Love My Way, 1983 - 9
Translator - Everywhere That I'm Not, 1982 - 9
Duran Duran - Hungry Like the Wolf, 1983 -8
Haircut 100 - Love Plus One, 1982 - 8
Jam - Monday, 1981 - 8
Rick Springfield - Jessie's Girl, 1981 - 8
Talk Talk - Talk Talk, 1982 - 8
Tones on Tail - Go!, 1984 - 8
Wang Chung - Dance Hall Days, 1984 - 8
Things change a bit when we look at the Occurrence Rate, factoring in the total # of sets for a particular year. The following songs show up at least 5 times AND in at least 1/3 of All Sets for their given year:
Cranberries - Dreams, 1993 - 77.8%
Annie Lennox - Little Bird, 1993 - 55.6%
Church - Metropolis, 1990 - 52.6%
Crowded House - Sister Madly, 1988 - 45.5%
Terence Trent D'Arby - Wishing Well, 1988 - 45.5%
Fine Young Cannibals - Good Thing, 1989 - 41.4%
Nirvana - Lithium, 1992 - 41.2%
Tom Cochran - Life is a Highway, 1992 - 41.2%
Robbie Nevil - C'est La Vie, 1986 - 40.7%
Color Me Badd - All 4 Love, 1991 - 38.9%
EMF - Unbelievable, 1991 - 38.9%
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend, 1991 - 38.9%
Metallica - Enter Sandman, 1991 - 38.9%
Rembrandts - Just the Way it is, Baby, 1991 - 38.9%
Michael Penn - No Myth, 1990 - 36.8%
Midnight Oil - Blue Sky Mine, 1990 - 36.8%
Dwight Twilley - I'm On Fire, 1975 - 36.0%
Huey Lewis & the News - The Power of Love, 1985 - 36.0%
Crowded House - Something So Strong, 1986 - 33.3%
R.E.M. - Texarkana, 1991 - 33.3%
Crowded House deserves a special analysis. Dave has played a total of 5 different songs of theirs in '87 & '88 sets (Don't Dream it's Over, Something So Strong, World Where You Live, Better Be Home Soon & Sister Madly), which have between them appeared a total of 33 times in 47 combined sets from the two years, or 70% of the time! And even in '91 sets we have a 32% chance of hearing either "Fall At Your Feet" or "It's Only Natural", which for me at least are total Naradas.
A couple of songs with only 4 appearances deserve special mention, too. First of all, Weezer's "Buddy Holly" is well on it's way to being one of the biggest Katrinas of all time. There have only ever been 6 sets from 1996 (the only year from which I can say I definitely have all the sets) & it has popped up FOUR times already. Which gives it the 2nd highest repeat rate, albeit from a relatively small (yet statistically complete) sample size.
The other one is Diana Ross & the Supremes "Someday We'll Be Together", which is in 4 out of our 22 sets from 1969, but, as Gaz can tell you, has been tune #10 Every. Single. Time.