Well I, for one, didn't know what the canary dying meant. I wouldn't have chose it even if I did, though, because you're either gonna have songs that invoke panic or just death. I think it's one of the more limiting options.
(I googled it just now)
I'm going to assume that the canary dying in a coal mine was used in a very popular form of media (a book, I presume) that everyone except me had to read in their honors placement English class.
