And chris, the user didn't ask how to only get some playlists, they asked for deletion of songs from their ipod with preservation on iTunes
Okay. My suggestion leaves it in iTunes and removes it from the iPod.
that is what my suggestion d which the only way to do this without interfering with current iTunes settings is to manually add and remove them.
If he is does not have "Manually manage music" ticked, he's gonna have to "interfere" with the iTunes settings.
Since he has more music in iTunes than on his iPod, iTunes has already created a playlist to fit his iPod and selected that to sync.
Doing it my way, he doesn't even have to change ANY settings in iTunes.
Just add/delete from the selected playlist.
Though your method works, it is not how to truly "delete" a song from your iPod.
Why isn't it "truly" how to do it?
When I delete it from a synced playlist, it stays in the iTunes library and it is removed from the iPod.