Except I'm just as likely to do it with entire albums as with single songs.

I listen to new albums straight through, and I can play them on repeat if they catch me—as with Fussell's self-titled debut, which was a solid soundtrack for two or three days—but in almost all cases favorite tracks eventually emerge and these are the ones which see the most replay.

All these rules change with writing music, I think. If I am writing to an album, it just plays over and over, alternating with whatever else is in my head at the time, and usually rates a mention in the text somehow. So John Roberts' "The Boatman's Cure" and Cordelia's Dad's "Delia" are individual songs that influenced the writing of "The Boatman's Cure" (Ghost Signs), but I also listened to a tremendous amount of Peter Bellamy's Kipling settings and a soundtrack mix for The Lady's Not for Burning that I got from derspatchel, a lot. [edit] I did not track music for that story as carefully as I have with others, I suspect partly because it was written over a period of nearly three years. I have much more in the way of notes on "The Salt House."

(And let's not even get into my Hamilton obsession/addiction.)

I know! Everybody on my friendlist is listening to Hamilton except me! I will almost certainly like it when I do!