Pulp have shared a new song, ‘Begging For Change’, taken from the star-studded ‘Help(2)’ album in aid of War Child. Listen below.
- READ MORE: Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker: “This is like going back to when you start a band”
The raw and primal track was recorded at London’s historic Abbey Road Studios, and produced and mixed by James Ford and Animesh Raval. Ford also helmed the Sheffield band’s acclaimed 2025 record, ‘More’.
‘Begging For Change’ is an intense cut that finds Jarvis Cocker and co. in a stripped-back, urgent and unapologetic form. The frontman enlisted the same children’s choir that featured on Damon Albarn, Grian Chatten and Kae Tempest’s ‘Help(2)’ track ‘Flags’, which arrived last week.
Pulp’s new song also boasts an all-star choir, including the likes of Albarn, Chatten, Tempest and Carl Barât, who contribute backing vocals to the start of the track.
“We are being strip-mined by the powers that be/ We are being strip-mined by the new bourgeoisie,” Cocker sings, delivering a submissive, robot-like vocal. “Now we’re begging…”
The slow, distorted electric guitar intro then makes way for a raucous, upbeat instrumental, and a chant from Cocker and his choir: “B-E-G-G-I-N-G/ Begging for Change!” Then, the singer runs through all the things he wants to change about himself and the world. “I wanna change me, him, you!” he declares, as he looks to the future.
“The song was finished at Abbey Road Studios late last year,” Cocker wrote on social media. “It was begun in late 2024 – and all these people [pictured] played on it and made it happen at that time.
“But it didn’t go on ‘More’ because a certain person couldn’t get the lyrics right, even though the rest of the band waited patiently.”
He continued: “‘Help’ arrived: James Ford rang and asked if we had a song for the new ‘Help’ album. I suggested we could finish ‘Begging For Change’. Success!
“Sometimes a song needs a purpose. Like all the other 22 songs on the ‘Help’ album, ‘Begging For Change’ is designed to raise money to help children living in war zones around the world. This only works if you buy/download/stream it.”
In a separate statement, Cocker said: “Thirty years ago we gave our Mercury Prize (and the prize money) to War Child. This year we have given more. How much more? You’ll have to wait and see.”
As aforementioned, Pulp’s album ‘Different Class’ was nominated alongside the original ‘Help’ compilation for the 1996 Mercury Prize. After picking up the award, Cocker dedicated the moment to War Child and donated the £25,000 prize money to the charity in his acceptance speech.
The forthcoming ‘Help(2)’ has also been previewed with a new Arctic Monkeys song, ‘Opening Night’. Other big names on the album tracklist include Olivia Rodrigo, Blur‘s Graham Coxon, English Teacher, Depeche Mode, Foals, Wet Leg, The Last Dinner Party, Wolf Alice‘s Ellie Rowsell and many more.
Meanwhile, James Ford has revealed that some artists refused to be involved in ‘Help(2)’ as they thought it was “too political”. The project was recorded through “a close collaboration with Abbey Road Studios”, mostly during one week in November 2025.
‘Help(2)’ will be released on Friday March 6 via War Child Records – you can pre-order your copy here.
Pulp are scheduled to play their “only major UK headline concert” at Manchester’s Wythenshawe Park this summer, before topping the bill at End Of The Road 2026. They’ll headline Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, too.
The band have been nominated for Group Of The Year at the BRITs 2026, which take place next Saturday (February 28).
Cocker recently teased that Pulp “might write some more songs” together. The update came after his bandmates Nick Banks and Candida Doyle told NME that they were “not itching” to make another new album. “An EP, maybe, or a single,” Doyle added.
When NME asked Cocker last summer if fans could expect a follow-up to ‘More’, he replied: “Maybe. We tried to not have a concept for this record or think, ‘This is it, this is our last gas’. I used to think that a lot.
“I had this weird thing that when an album was mixed and finished where I’d think, ‘Oh, I can die now and it would be OK’. That’s a terrible way to think about your life, really. I didn’t feel that with this record.”
Earlier this month, Pulp recorded a live session for BBC Radio 2’s Piano Lounge, where they covered ABBA’s ‘The Day Before You Came’. Cocker also made an appearance on the hit CBeebies show Bedtime Stories.
In other news, the frontman will return to BBC Radio 6 Music this spring as part of a schedule shake-up.
