Credits

• Writers: Pulp with Steve Mackey
• Lyrics: Jarvis Cocker
• String arrangements: Rich Jones and Emma Smith
• Producer: James Ford
• Engineer and mixer: Animesh Raval
• Mastering Engineer: Matt Colton

• Studio musicians
  • Jarvis Cocker - vocals, acoustic guitar
  • Candida Doyle - Solina organ
  • Mark Webber - guitar
  • Nick Banks - drums
  • Emma Smith - violin
  • Andrew Mckinney - bass
  • Jason Buckle - electronics
  • Richard Jones - piano
  • Adam Betts - percussion
  • The Elysian Collective (Rich Jones, Nick Banks, Phil Granell, Jennymay Logan, Jordan Bergmans, Paloma Deike, Rosie Tompsett, Zami Jalil, Charlotte Stock, Sam Becker, Shelley Britton, Laura Moody, Sergio De Serra, David Kadumukasa, Freya Goldmark, Flora Curzon, Patrick Dawkins, Mandhira de Saram, Ros Stephen, Val Welbanks and Chihiro Ono) - strings

The female "you got to have love" backing vocals are a sample from Invention performed by Nick Ingman.

Lyrics

(You've got to have love, you've got to have love
you've got to have love, you've got to have love)

Light all your candles
Light all your candles for me now
Cos all your birthdays came at once
And don't you try to hide
It cannot be denied
I waited far too long
To believe, to believe in the words I once wrote to this song:

And you've got to have love, you've got to have love
(You've got to have love, you've got to have love)
Yes you've got to have love, you've got to have love
(You've got to have love, you've got to have love)

Without love you're just making a fool of yourself
Without love you're just jerking off inside someone else
I got nothing else to say about it
Are you in or are you out of it?
Stop your fidgeting and tell me about it
I see it in your eyes, you know you've...

Got to have love, you've got to have love
(Got to have love, you've got to have love)
Yes, you've got to have love, you've got to have love
(You've got to have love, you've got to have love)

Oh, oh
(Got to have love, got to have love, got to have love...)

When love disappears, life disappears
And you sit on your backside for 25 years
And you hedge your bets
And twist and bust
And try and fail and work on an album and build a jail
And lock yourself away
From the one thing
The one thing that could save you
The one thing that scares you to death
The only thing that can bring you back to life

So learn to say it whilst keeping a straight face, yeah
Say it
Say it, you ponce
It's time to come to your senses
It's time to wake up and face the consequences
What do you need?
I'm asking you a question
Every one of you, without exception
What do you need?
Speak up
I mean, do you even know how to spell it?
Well, I'll spell it for you, yeah
It goes: L.O.V.E.
You spell it: L.O.V.E.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Oh, you've got to have love, you've got to have love
(You've got to have love, you've got to have love)
Yes, you've got to have love, yes you've got to have love
(You've got to have love, you've got to have love)
Yes, you've got to have love, you've got to have love
(You've got to have love, you've got to have love)
Yes, you've got to have love, you've got to have love
(You've got to have love, you've got to have love)
Oh, oh

Notes

The October 1999 demo version includes a sample of female vocalists singing You got to have love (repeated many times). The January 2000 version may have had Jarvis' own vocals. The song was performed live in 2024 and 2025 then released as the second single from the album More. The above lyrics are from the album version.

Related pages

• Song list