Interesting. 2021 and 2022 I almost always wrote with music playing. Especially when I moved to a budget Marriott hotel and would plant myself in the breakfast/TV room all day and having the music on would help me focus/not get distracted by the TV or other people. Sometimes whatever came on my Spotify worked its way into what I was writing. Synchronicity. Sometime after I moved to PA where I am usually alone, music while writing became a distraction.

One of my hallmarks is referencing lyrics in my poems or writing things inspired by a song. In my recent elegiac ode to Lindsey, the poem includes 20 song references, 19 of which I linked in the notes, and at the start of the piece, I suggested the reader might want to read along to one of these instrumentals: Elegia by New Order or Moments in Love by Art of Noise. Not sure if I mentioned or linked this to you earlier. https://medium.com/write-under-the-moon/elegiastic-ode-to-joy-life-and-death-99ccb4866171 It's much more loving than it is sad.

Here's a list of most of my song quoting or inspired by pieces--mostly poems. In the notes in the list I name the songs the reader will find in the pieces. https://medium.com/@marcus17043/list/poems-with-song-references-or-inspired-by-songs-c9a7fb39713d