(November 28, 2023)
Video Transcript:
So this is a followup to my original review of the Philosophy of Modern Song, which at this point was like damn near a year ago.
And since then I’ve been down the rabbit hole on various aspects of Bob Dylan in general.
Specifically though, Bob Dylan’s relationship with Eddie Gorodetsky who he gives credit to for helping him with PhMoSo. But there’s no indication of what exactly Eddie contributed.
When I made that original review I had not read all that much of the book. I had skipped around and read whatever stuck out to me. The things I came across were gems. I guess the book is probably just full of gems.
There were some semi-perverted things in it that really just rocked my socks and I was like “Oh, fuck yeah, I’m all about this.” I’ll talk about that in another recording.
I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this whole Eddie G thing because Eddie G was responsible for Theme Time Radio Hour as well, right? And TTRH was what, like 2004, 2005?
How long have Bob and Eddie known each other?
We know that they’ve known each other for at least 20 years, but how long did they know each other before that?
The reason I’m curious is because I recently came across the liner notes to “World Gone Wrong” which was 1992.
The liner notes bear a very strong resemblance to what is written in PhMoSo.
The only difference is that the liner notes are a little rough around the edges when it comes to things like capitalization, punctuation, etc.
So my question is this…
Because they are so similar, there are a couple of possibilities.
(1) Either Bob Dylan actually is responsible for PhMoSo, and that possibility opens up a whole can of delicious worms for me, which I’ll explain in another recording.
Possibility (2) is that back in 1992, Bob and Eddie G knew each other, and Eddie was writing things for Bob.
That’s like 31 years ago at the time of recording this. What are the odds that they knew each other back then? Did they know each other back then?
So the ghostwriting thing…
Say Eddie G is responsible for the bulk of PhMoSo, well then it’s the same style as the 1992 WGW liner notes, meaning he must have written those too.
Because what is Eddie contributing exactly to PhMoSo? What did Eddie contribute to TTRH?
I was under the impression that Eddie wrote TTRH and Bob Dylan just read it. And he did a great job reading it, cuz it was awesome.
But did Eddie write PhMoSo, TTRH style, and Bob Dylan just read it?
Or did Bob really write it?
How long have they known each other, and is Eddie G just basically Bob Dylan’s ghostwriter?
If he was around in 1992 and wrote the WGW liner notes…
Then did he also write ~Chronicles Vol. 1? Because I felt like it was the same voice as PhMoSo, and I still kind of agree with that.
This is a whole other recording, but Chronicles is a lot more book-like, autobiographical, it’s not the same as PhMoSo.
To me, if Eddie G has really been around in Bob’s life since 1992…
Then I feel like Chronicles was way more written by Bob than by Eddie. I feel like Bob probably really did write that book more than he wrote PhMoSo.
And what really drives me up the wall is that we’ll never know the answer to these things.
If Eddie G really is ghostwriting these books, I appreciate that Bob has been using the same ghostwriter for all these years.
It lends familiarity and consistency to the writings at least.
If Eddie has ghostwritten these works for Bob…
Any appreciator of Bob Dylan who knows their sh*t has heard the theories that Bob’s always used ghostwriters, like since the beginning.
If it’s not true and if Bob really has written these books, then it’s so weird that people think he’s been using a ghostwriter forever.
Imagine having written all that stuff, and people are like “Bob Dylan didn’t write that, somebody else wrote that! Ghostwriter!” That would suck.
I have more thoughts about PhMoSo that I’d like to share in later recordings.
