Synopsis

The video turns "Jumping Someone Else's Train" into a rapid, disorienting rail journey. A long stretch of track and passing countryside rushes toward the viewer as the footage is sped up and played backward, creating the sensation of a train hurtling through the landscape in defiance of normal time. The Cure never appear on screen, leaving the visual to function as a stark, literal and slightly surreal counterpart to the song's criticism of people following the latest trend.

Factoids & Trivia

• Although the song was released in 1979, the promotional video was made later, in 1986, for the video compilation *Staring at the Sea - The Images*.

• The footage follows a rail journey between London Victoria and Brighton. Its reversed and accelerated presentation gives the otherwise ordinary trip an unsettling, almost dreamlike quality.

• The Cure do not appear in the video at all. The absence of performance footage makes the train itself the central visual subject.

• The song's lyrics take aim at conformity and fashion-driven behavior. Robert Smith later identified the mod revival of the period as one of his targets.

• "Jumping Someone Else's Train" was the final Cure single featuring original bassist Michael Dempsey, who left the band soon afterward.

• The single's B-side, "I'm Cold," features backing vocals by Siouxsie Sioux.

• In early live performances, The Cure often linked the song to "Another Journey by Train," an instrumental that later appeared as the B-side of "A Forest."