Music and literature often circle the same ideas. Artists in different mediums explore similar themes—memory, alienation, dreams, identity—sometimes without ever meeting.
The Shared Obsessions series looks at unexpected connections between writers and musicians. A novelist and a band might share a fascination with surreal imagery. A songwriter and a poet might approach the same emotional landscape from different angles.
These essays place works from music and literature side by side to see how their ideas echo across mediums. The goal isn’t to prove direct influence but to explore the creative parallels that emerge when artists wrestle with similar questions.
Sometimes the results feel surprisingly natural, as if two distant voices were part of the same conversation all along.
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Leonard Cohen and Anna Akhmatova: Love and Loss
Capitalism and Collapse: George Saunders & Father John Misty
Modern Life Is Making Us Weird: Don DeLillo, Talking Heads, and Consumer Surrealism
Full Archive
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The Room You Can’t Leave: Infinite Jest, The Weeknd, and the Trap of Desire
The scariest pleasures are not the ones that get old quickly. Those are easy. They disappoint you or make you feel bad fast enough that your self-respect has… Continue Reading
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Modern Life Is Making Us Weird: Don DeLillo, Talking Heads, and Consumer Surrealism
There is a kind of modern weirdness that can look like a supermarket aisle so overstocked it starts to feel theological under the fluorescent lights. Or maybe like… Continue Reading
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Dreams and Nightmares: Franz Kafka & Radiohead
There’s a particular kind of dread that doesn’t announce itself. It’s the feeling of waking up and realizing the world is operating by rules you were never given.… Continue Reading
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Madness and Clarity: Sylvia Plath & Fiona Apple
Why One Artist Rewrote Her Narrative—and the Other Never Got the Chance At first, Sylvia Plath and Fiona Apple seemed to be placed in the same cultural box.… Continue Reading
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Capitalism and Collapse: George Saunders & Father John Misty
Late capitalism rarely feels like a crisis while you are living inside it. It feels like emails. Metrics. Wellness language that quietly replaces care. It feels like knowing… Continue Reading
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Addiction and Aftermath: Charles Bukowski & Amy Winehouse
Some artists turn pain into performance. Others let it spill, unfiltered, across the page or the microphone. Charles Bukowski and Amy Winehouse belonged to that second kind. They… Continue Reading