Without love
You’re just making a fool of yourself
Without love
You’re just jerking off inside someone else
There comes a moment, swift and terrible in its purity, when one realizes the love they have long cherished; believed sacred, tender, eternal, was merely a shadow cast by desire, loneliness, or a fragile ego. All previous declarations, fervent yet hollow, quietly crumble like weathered paper beneath steady rain. Only then, stripped bare of artifice, in painful yet exquisite solitude, does the heart truly grasp love’s magnitude. Love, once imagined simple, reveals itself as vast, demanding courage to accept its rawness. It emerges as life’s one true necessity – inescapable, absolute – filling the profound emptiness hidden beneath mere illusions of devotion.
Passionate and cerebral as ever, the almighty Pulp expand upon this revelation with the soul-soothing anthem Got To Have Love. The track is a sumptuous blend of soul and disco, effortlessly channeling Gamble and Huff and punctuated by a Barry White-esque spoken interlude…one could easily imagine it belted out by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes or Donna Summer.
Described by Jarvis Cocker as a “slightly hysterical song that tries to talk about love as I see it now,” it implores us to stop posturing and embrace the vulnerability of authentic “L-O-V-E luv.” With swaggering declarations and razor-sharp wit, Got To Have Love insists that without love’s tremendous life force, existence becomes little more than hollow performance; a masquerade of self-denial parading as survival. It’s a compelling plea to awaken, confront our fears, and finally speak aloud what genuinely matters. Amen.
Last September, revelers at Brooklyn’s Kings Theatre were treated to the first live performance of Got To Have Love. Originally penned in 1999, the song spent twenty-six years languishing unfinished; a casualty of a true writer’s block for the ages. Jarvis Cocker explains the reason for the prolonged delay:
“Love is a word I was unable to say until I was approaching 40,” he says. “I listened to love songs all the time, but couldn’t use the word in real life. The words to this song are me having a word with myself about this state of affairs. I gave myself a real talking-to. I have now learnt how to say it whilst keeping a straight face. You’ve got to have love. Oh yes you have.”
Jarvis Cocker himself directed the video, seamlessly weaving in vintage footage from Tony Palmer’s classic 1977 documentary, The Wigan Casino, which captures Northern Soul’s beating heart with electrifying intimacy. Set within the iconic Lancashire nightclub, Palmer’s film vividly portrays working-class youth dancing until dawn to obscure American soul singles, spotlighting their sweat-drenched escapism, obsessive record collecting, and the fierce camaraderie forged on the dance floor. For Cocker, whose art thrives on gritty authenticity and emotional rawness, these scenes must have resonated profoundly; Cocker champions the overlooked and mundane, elevating ordinary life experiences to euphoric poetry.
Well. How about some in 2025?
At long last, Pulp have returned, prising open a bold new chapter with More, their first album since 2001’s We Love Life. Recorded in just three electrifying weeks at London’s Orbb Studio last November with producer James Ford, this is a record of rare immediacy…Jarvis Cocker himself noting it’s the quickest Pulp album ever laid down.
Dedicated to the band’s dearly departed bassist Steve Mackey, More arrives on June 6th via Rough Trade, draped as always in dry wit and widescreen swagger, but this time sharpened to a sleeker, steelier edge. Richard Hawley and Jason Buckle each pen one track, while the Eno clan lends spectral backing to another. Richard Jones orchestrates strings for the Elysian Collective, providing a lush and stirring thrum beneath the sheen.
Global listening parties celebrating the release of More will launch at record stores worldwide beginning May 29. Dates for US parties will be announced May 27…stay tuned for updates here.
Pulp will be winding their way around Europe and North America this summer, making stops in Glasgow, London, DC, Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, Toronto, Detroit and more. It is a brief blitz rather than a drawn-out affair, but the impact is set to be seismic: Jarvis Cocker and company remain cultural shape-shifters, bringing More to life with the same spiky elegance and deadpan drama that once pinned pop to the margins and made it strange again. This September, Pulp and LCD Soundsystem will co-command the Hollywood Bowl for two nights of nostalgia, smirk, and synth beneath California skies…skies that once promised everything but will soon instead deliver disco-drenched existentialism.
…ARE YOU READY?
PULP – 2025 TOUR DATES
- Saturday 7 June – Glasgow OVO Hydro
- Tuesday 10 June – Dublin 3Arena
- Friday 13 June – London The O2
- Saturday 14 June – London The O2
- Thursday 19 June – Birmingham Utilita Arena
- Saturday 21 June – Manchester Co-op Live
- Thursday 10 July – Bilbao BBK Live
- Monday 14 July – Montreux Jazz Festival
- Friday 25 July – Sheffield Tramlines
- Saturday 2 August – Incheon Pentaport Rock Festival
- Friday 15 August – Saint Malo La Route Du Rock
- Thursday 4 September – Atlanta Tabernacle
- Saturday 6 September – Washington, DC The Anthem
- Tuesday 9 September – Philadelphia The Met
- Thursday 11 September – NYC Forest Hills Stadium
- Saturday 13 September – Boston Suffolk Downs
- Tuesday 16 September – Toronto Budweiser Stage
- Wednesday 17 September – Detroit Masonic Temple
- Saturday 20 September – Minneapolis The Armory
- Monday 22 September – Denver Red Rocks Amphitheatre
- Thursday 25 September – Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl
- Friday 26 September – Los Angeles Hollywood Bowl
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