Pulp: We Love Life

We Love Life

Best song: Wickerman

Worst song: Roadkill

Overall grade: 5

One thing I really respect is a band that knows when it’s time to stop. Pulp are, without a doubt, one of these bands. ‘We Love Life’ is the sound of a group who have done all they can for music, and want to bow out on a high note rather than fading into the pits of mediocrity. And there was certainly no secret made of its being their last album – on the back of the liner notes, you can see the band in a campervan driving away, one of them holding up a sign saying ‘Bye’. I definitely think they did this the right way. This album is their most mature release, but it’s not quite as strong as the last two, and not as unique either (this is possibly down to the change in producers, though).

When I write reviews, I usually like to focus on the little details that make songs great, but Pulp are really more about the overall picture, the way just the sound of their songs is grandiose, epic, angry, confident, life-affirming and full of pride. Even the weaker songs are swept up in this and it elevates them. It’s probably why I like ‘Weeds’ so much despite it being exactly like all their other album openers, or ‘The Night That Minnie Timperley Died’ despite it being so rushed (it was written in ten minutes, which I only recently found out but wasn’t surprised by at all.) The only song that really disappoints me is ‘Roadkill’, because it has potential but never seems to get going.

‘Wickerman’ is brilliant, just brilliant. It would be easy to just get engrossed by the story being told through the lyrics. But that would disregard the music, which goes a long way to enhance the story. The way Jarvis’ voice moves so easily from singing to speaking to somewhere in between is so clever, really adds to the overall effect. The story Jarvis tells is about a river that runs underneath a city that the narrator likes to walk along to see where it goes, and near the end it occurred to me that the river is actually the sewers. That’s a twisted and disgusting interpretation of what might otherwise be quite a an everyday sort of story, and it’s morbidly fascinating.

There’s a couple of other career-highlight tracks too. ‘I Love Life’ is, according to iTunes, the song I play most, and it shows that Jarvis isn’t out of quirky lyric lines yet. I love the double meanings of ‘Mum & Dad have sentenced you to life’ and ‘I love my life; it’s the only reason I’m alive’. The song sounds contented and laid-back, with a clear message: you can only work with what you have, and it might be hard but it’s always best to be happy about it. ‘Sunrise’, too, is a wonderful swansong. Jarvis used to hate mornings, shown in songs like ‘Monday Morning’ and ‘Bar Italia’. Here he doesn’t. He sees that mornings have all kinds of possibilities; a new start, like the one he’s about to have… oh, yeah, this is also the only Pulp song that’s not necessarily lyrics-based. The second half is instrumental and it’s a great, uplifting sound.

I’m also going to quickly shout out to ‘Bob Lind’ which most people don’t like, but I do. Yes, the lyrics are about how much being famous sucks, hardly new ground for the band, but the music’s really good. Also, ‘Bad Cover Version’ because of its cute, off-the-wall pop culture references in the final verse. Try to listen to that verse without smiling. I dare you.

Previous Pulp records, ‘His ‘N’ Hers’ in particular, felt very synthetic. On the contrary, ‘We Love Life’ is natural, and you can see that in the plants growing around the band’s name on the cover, in the titles of some of the songs, and in the fact that money from selling the CD is donated to Future Forests. This is a band who have always been about fighting for the underdog, and now they-re fighting for trees – who are really the ultimate underdog, because they can’t fight for themselves.

I ‘borrowed’ Jarvis Cocker’s first solo album from my dad and downloaded it to my iPod. I’ve listened to it but I haven’t formed an opinion yet – when I do, I’m sure I’ll review it here.