Ed Harcourt's Five Favourite Ralph Steadman Pieces

This glorious specimen is from an excellent hardback book called Extinct Boids; one that Ralph created with Ceri Levy. The demented looking creature is known as the ‘South Eastern Tellychat’, a mischievous and anarchic flightless descendant of the Bog Snipe, carrying a bizarre appendage on it’s noggin’, known to pick up secret service messages near military bases, hence it’s immediate extinction. I’m sad it’s not around, this bird really looks like it knows something we don’t.

A stone cold classic from Ralph. He gave me a postcard of this the other day after our visit; I harassed and poked him into splattering ink all over my white jacket, which I was wearing, seems the ink is now embedded in my skin, which is already covered in ink. I’m listening to the Ink Spots whilst writing this. WOAH! It’s undeniably unsettling really this picture, notice the scythe in the crowd of spectators, who look like the kind of grimacing non-entities you’d meet in purgatory.

C’mon! How can I not choose this? What a coup. This is such an unbelievable honour. When he sent it through I couldn’t believe it. It took me a few days to get my head around it because it was bloodily visceral and not what I expected but once I did I could not believe how amazing it was. He really captured something and I think it represents the songs inside this record. We spent some time working out what kind of cover it should be; I was deliberating and my ideas were shifting, I didn’t really know what I wanted until I looked through his book the Big I Am and then that was it. I must’ve driven him a bit mad. It now hangs on the wall above my desk in my studio. Thank you Ralph.

Sorry this is another original and it’s from when I first met Ralph a decade ago. We were in the Townhouse studios recording sea shanties with Hal Willner for the Rogue’s Gallery album & I knew Ralph was coming in to sing one. I ended up playing piano on a song about a cabin boy who escaped being eaten by a starving crew out at sea. True story apparently. Ralph stayed for a while and signed this book for me. I shyly asked him and just drew this picture of Hunter without saying a word. Blew my mind.

So the reason why I chose this is because I made a record outside of Seattle in the incredible Bear Creek Studios with Ryan Hadlock. I was there for a month and towards the end I painted a few canvases for some of the people there. One particular painting was of a bear playing a red gibson guitar, so when I saw this picture a few years later I couldn’t believe it! Obviously Ralph’s is far superior but it kind of tickled me pink and I hope it cements some idiotic notion in my head that we are on the same wavelength.

I salute you Ralph. Much love, Ed x