Music Babble

and yeah, it's pretty disappointing. Most of the songs he covers I'm unfamiliar with/uninterested in and the "impressionistic" stuff he writes about the songs (usually in the form of a narrative) is often embarrassingly clumsy. The more factual/anecdotal stuff fares better but in general, the thing almost reads like it was dictated by Grandpa Simpson. Would have been much better if Dylan had included more of his personal associations with the songs (when he first heard it etc) and more about the actual music rather than just the lyrics.

Never really got into Philly soul- according to RYM the only Philly soul I've rated are The Delfonics's s/t and "Back Stabbers" by the O'Jays. Enjoyed both (and have a feeling there's more releases that are simply escaping RYM's janky genre filters) but the subgenre is generally smoother than I typically like my soul/funk. Feel free to throw some recommendations at me though.

At one point, a close friend of mine considered "Norwood" his all time favorite book and gave me a copy and insisted that I read it. I remember nothing about it and was pretty baffled that something so uneventful could be *anyone's* favorite book.