[watertom]

The Zodiac didn't inspire the song, the Hound of the Baskerville's inspired the song.

"So the Zodiac actually emerged some months after the song was finished"

Story behind the song "Dire Wolf" http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2012/10/dire-wolf-1969.html

[gumby]

The full quotation from the page you linked to is,

“So the Zodiac actually emerged some months after the song was finished – but, as we’ll see, Garcia immediately made the connection between the killer and the song in live shows that October, when Zodiac frenzy gripped San Francisco. (He was recording pedal steel in the studio for CS&N on October 24; and on October 26 he mentions the Zodiac and “paranoid fantasies” onstage; so his memory of driving home in fear seems to be quite literal.)”

Is a song, especially a Dead song, finished when the pen leaves the paper?