Pulp – Got to Have Love Review

Digging through the archival tapes and finding a song worth finishing, Pulp returns to We Love Life demo Got to Have Love and makes it the second single of upcoming album, More. The Jarvis Cocker-fronted band at first looked not to redefine themselves with these songs but to fashion a neat line through those familiar classics and the sound of the future. That changes here. Pulp has evolved by looking back, and with the synth-heavy production of Got to Have Love, the backing vocalists bringing a punch of funk-like revitalisation, Cocker tears down the walls around his heart. He built those up through the Pulp heyday with anthemic disco revellers and darker persuasions of passively televised pornography. But he has softened in the post-This Is Hardcore era. Got to Have Love reassesses Cocker’s relationship with love, both the word and action.

What it means for Pulp is a suggestion that Got to Have Love may be a career-best work. A tackling of those mother, brother, lover rhyming structures which defined the band through His ‘n’ Hers and Different Class. The self-mockery heard on deep cut track The Professional has given way to acceptance and introspection, with Cocker having a word with himself on Got to Have Love. Pulp not only reconsiders their relationship with love as a frequent topic but adapts it to the modern world, the new definition of what love is. For a band whose sarcastic tinge is a defining part of their sound, to hear Cocker write openly of a fear, of how he rectified it, is a pleasant and sincere surprise. A surface-level callback to F.E.E.L.I.N.G. C.A.L.L.E.D. L.O.V.E. with the spelling of what everyone needs to have, is a sweet moment, backed with some bold string work from The Elysian Collective. From the past we learn of our present, and the future looks bright for Pulp if they continue down this path on More.

Lyrics warning of rapid ageing with all those birthdays coming at once, to the need for love, a connection beyond desire, is what defines Got to Have Love. Gone are the days of hiding in wardrobes, here are the moments of sitting down with the subject of infatuation, the feeling now mutual. It is not a knock at the lustful past from Cocker, but a quality breakdown of modern-day masculinity, of social acceptance. Love is the route, you have got to have it. Got to Have Love is a defining moment for Pulp – perhaps one of their very best once the dust has settled. The guitar work from Mark Webber after Cocker spells out a word which he feared until his fortieth birthday certainly suggests the band are not relying on those usual instrumental tones. Instrumentally defiant, lyrically open, it is what Pulp has always provided listeners. But here is a slice of modern life, the longing Pulp presented is passed over in favour of sincere connections with a loved one.  

Liberation is once more the subject for Cocker. His “twist and bust” solo career has him head back to the “one thing that could save you.” It has been a topic he skirted around for decades and has now, finally, performed with an unshrouded, unflinching clarity. Pulp provides not just a familiar topic but a reinvention, a reassessment of what they can do with this feeling. This is a defiant and strikingly brave continuation of an emotion which Cocker has deconstructed and reconstructed for nearly fifty years. Only now does he feel ready to consider love as a sincere opportunity which can be celebrated, not feared. Got to Have Love is an outstanding moment for Pulp, one which pairs their classic sound with a rejuvenated and refreshed relationship with a once frightening emotion.