“To Paul, For Nothing”: the song released by Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman
“So, I take myself across urban London into the slightly leafier style of Parson’s Green and am confronted with an imposing terraced house of considerable height and several floors,” songwriter Paul Philips writes about the day he went to Ralph Steadman’s house. He was invited over on short notice by his friend Jamie Jauncey. With no idea what either of them wanted but a heavy admiration for the illustrator, Philips jumped in a taxi and made his way there.
He continued, “Inside, it’s just as imposing, featuring the kind of Sunday Times Magazine style and ambience I’ve often aspired to. This cartooning lark clearly pays,” he says, “Jamie’s there with Ralph, and Ralph talks away in his disconnected fashion – he doesn’t draw like that by accident, you know. He thinks like that.”
Philips was talked through a new movie that Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson were working on called Where The Buffalo Roam. Bill Murray would star in the film, and though it was still in early development, they were looking at potential bands to provide the soundtrack.
Philips band at the time, Tax Loss, was appropriately named for the movie and had the kind of sound that both Thompson and Steadman were looking for. Philips agreed quickly to help out with the soundtracking, as he saw the opportunity as the stuff that dreams were made of. “Well, now I’m in pig heaven,” he said, “Bill Murray – funniest man on the planet – stars as my hero Hunter S. Thompson; I’m in the room with another hero, Ralph Steadman; and Tax Loss might get to feature on the soundtrack of a film we would all pay to go see.”
When the recording process started, however, it became clear that the band was in for a much tougher gig than they initially thought. Steadman and Thompson had both prepared music, and the song, ‘Weird and Twisted Nights’, ended up being well over ten minutes with various parts and breakdowns throughout. Plus, Steadman was singing, and while he could hold a tune, he wasn’t trained, so it took a lot to get the best performance out of him.
The song was completed, though, and put on a plane to LA that same day. It was never used for the movie as the studio had already locked in Neil Young to do the soundtrack; however, it does exist online and is certainly worth listening to. Considering how eclectic Thompson could be as a writer, the music is pretty tight and cohesive. Still, there are a lot of different elements at play throughout the track, which sounds like an odyssey in its execution.
Steadman was so happy he went around the band after the recording session, signing posters for those involved. “At the end of the session, Ralph pulled out posters of his Alice In Wonderland drawings and said to Mart Jenner, ‘Sorry, Mart, what did you play?’ ‘Guitar’, said Mart. Whereupon Ralph takes his felt tip and signs a poster, ‘Mart, thanks for the guitar’.”
Philips continued, “He goes around the room and the routine repeats. Lastly, he gets to me and says, ‘And what were you doing, Paul?’ ‘Producing’, I say. He hesitates and says: ‘Oh. So what does a producer do?’ ‘Nothing’, I smiled.”
As such, Steadman, true to his word and wanting to show gratification, took out another poster and signed it for Paul Philips. Now, the song ‘Weird and Twisted Nights’ exists as an archive, available on SoundCloud and YouTube, with Philips having one of the only surviving tapes. It sits alongside a poster dedicated to him from Ralph Steadman, simply signed, “To Paul, For Nothing.”
