Almost a year on from the release of More and Pulp has, well, more for listeners. Between a cover of Johnny Cash’s The Man Comes Around (which features on the A-side of their recent release), Begging for Change which very nearly featured on their first album in twenty-four years, and another selection of live shows, fans are well-stocked for 2026. Two songs which were intended for More but never made it onto the album also feature on this recent Cash cover release, B-side offerings which will no doubt go down well with those who heard the band at their best on More. Both Marrying for Love and Cold Call on the Hot Line are vintage Pulp – the sort of storytelling tone and fleshed-out appeal of their very best deep cuts and demo tracks. We Can Dance Again and Ansaphone may not get as large a look-in as they deserve, but they’re a real treat for those willing to fish them out of that backlog, for instance. It’s the same appeal with Marrying for Love.
With a start that sounds more suited to The Ronettes’ Be My Baby until those clanging noises come in, a little flex of the expanded Pulp membership muscles, and lyrics of chihuahua’s under arms, lifetimes of learning. That latter point is a core part of More, a chance to hear the little details of life which burn brighter when brought to song. Jarvis Cocker appears to be leaning into religious imagery once more here. He did so on Sometimes I Am Pharaoh, the fascinating deep cut piece from Jarv Is, but also with Slow Jam from More. Those tablets of stone he mentions, the thy kingdom come reliance, it all links well to the traditional church wedding which forms the core of Marrying for Love. It’s easy to hear why it doesn’t quite fit onto More, in that it lacks the nuance found in songs like Farmers Market and Partial Eclipse, but it harks back to that fundamental need for love to be the beating core of any relationship.
It may be one of the best of Cocker’s reflective, storytelling angles. Put it up there with Sheffield: Sex City as far as contemplative flourishes on love and all its little nuances. Cocker’s nuance is lost a little in the mix, and the tablets of stone which feature on the track feel far more appropriate for the Jarv Is project, but such overlap has happened before with Slow Jam, and may happen again in future. Marrying for Love depends on the suggestion of eroticism eroded by domesticity. An infatuation that naturally grows but forgets to keep the olive branch of romance connected to it as it leans into the new feeling. Shouting from the rooftops never sounded so anxiety-ridden. Catchy but cooling off before it hits that Pulp peak, Marrying for Love certainly sounds like a test of the waters for what would become a core part of More.
What the band proved with More is that the infatuation we feel with the ideal scenario is valid, but likely never set to come. Not because encounters at farmer’s markets or using your imagination as a tool for sexual innovation isn’t possible, but because to get there is to get even with a set of circumstances far different from what’s now available. Twenty-four years is a long time, and the subjects featured on More and in these extra songs had been a part of We Love Life. There is the hope of a natural connection in a song like Birds in Your Garden, a clinging to nostalgia as a crutch of connection on Wickerman. Marrying for Love feels as though it has shed both of those, and that the object of desire in the title of the song, that connection leading to commitment, is out of style, not with the band, but with the public. It’s a watershed moment for the band’s tone towards one of their biggest themes.
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