#156 (of 365) "Jumping Someone Else's Train" The Cure

I fell in love with The Cure in high school. "Just Like Heaven," which did make the list way way down was one of my anthems of sophomore year and I never fell out of love with it. But in college, I discovered the massive back catalog of amazing music from the band whose first album was released in the 70s. But if you asked me then, in college or after college, what would be the highest ranking songs of theirs when I made a best-of-all-time list in 2024/25, I would first ask why I was making such a list and also what is a Vague Space or a blog, but then I would be pretty stunned that this song (and the one that's coming a few slots higher) would be the ones I ended up being most fond of. Not that I didn't always love this song, but it's pretty fucking insane. This is a song from the 70s (!) and there are very few on this chart that can say that. Released on November 2, 1979, as a stand-alone single b/w "I'm Cold", it would later appear on the US version of the band's debut album Boys Don't Cry in 1980.

And it's the lyrics that always get me. Or what I get from them. The idea that our society is always about copying other people's ideas/interests rather than fomenting original thought, and if this was the prevalent feeling by Robert Smith and the band in 1979, I shudder to think what they think of our social media obsessed world now. Stop jumping someone else's train, world. Have an original fucking thought for once. Please. Although I fear it's too late.

Don't say what you mean
You might spoil your face
If you walk in the crowd
You won't leave any trace
It's always the same
You’re jumping someone else's train

It won't take long to learn
The new smile
You have to adapt 
Or you'll be out of style
It's always the same
You’re jumping someone else's train

If you pick up on it quick
You can say you were there
Again and again and again
You’re jumping someone else's train

It's the latest wave that you've been craving for
The old ideal was getting such a bore
Now you're back in line
Going not quite as far
But in half the time
Everyone's happy, they're finally all the same
Because everyone's jumping everybody else's train

"Jumping Someone Else's Train" - The Cure // Boys Don't Cry (1980)