Dear Helen,

You have hit upon a fantastic point and I'm sure that much of our passion for a particular artist/singer/songwriter/whatever is based on the priority we place on the words versus the music. There are those that do provide both and that too gets wrapped up in personal taste. For me, I think Paul Simon might be an example of the "both."

I have seen the phenomenom you describe go either way regarding men and women and I'd be willing to agree that in general it's as you, but I personally know too many examples of men=music, women=words to say that's all there is to it. It has always made me wonder exactly what it is, but my guess is it's tied up in so many different facets of our backgrounds that any individual thing would be hard to pin down...be some interesting research.

Just the highlights of a story I told a while back in another thread...My friend Mac courted his wife continually using Dylan song lyrics. He is a major Dylan fan, but she basically had no idea who Dylan was. Mac doesn't play anything nor does he sing since he believes himself to be a poor singer. The funny thing was that he kept using lyrics that could hardly be described as romantic...well Dylan isn't exactly the king of romance songs, BUT, he used particularly UN-romantic lyrics...like "Dogs run free, why not me?" I dunno'...almost 20 years later they're still happily married, great kids......I could never figure out their courtship though. When I told the extended version of this story awhile back, Rick Fielding suggested the "answer is blowin' in the wind." He's probably right.

catspaw