Songfacts®:

• Wham, bam, thank you ma'am. In this song, Psychedelic Furs lead singer Richard Butler sings from the perspective of a guy looking to satisfy his lusty desires, and love has nothing to do with it. Most of his lyrics are subtle and open to interpretation, but it's pretty clear what he means by "into you like a train."
• Some sensitive listeners were offended by this song, but Richard Butler defended it, pointing out that men and woman can share carnal desires equally. "I didn't find there were any attitudes on there written as a male that couldn't also be felt as a female," he told The Quietus. "Not every time a girl has sex does she want to get married and have babies with the person - you know? It seemed a curiously old-fashioned way of looking at it all, and in a way, reverse sexism."
• Regarding the lines, "If you believe that anyone like me within a song is outside at all, then you're all so wrong," Butler told Songfacts: "It was saying that just because you're a singer in a band doesn't mean that you're going to be able to change the world, and that you might not even want to change the world. Though I suppose in a lot of ways I do want to change the world because I'm very critical of it, and if you would count critical as wanting to change something, then I suppose, I have wanted to change things. But it's saying that I'm not outside of it all, I'm not in a position to be able to judge you because I'm here in it all too."
• A track from Psychedelic Furs' second album, Talk Talk Talk, "Into You Like A Train" wasn't released as a single but became one of their most popular live songs, especially after they re-formed in 2000 after taking nine years off.
• The first two Psychedelic Furs albums were released in 1980 and 1981, as were U2's. All of them were produced by Steve Lillywhite, who was rather busy around this time. By 1982, both bands were on the same trajectory, but the Psychedelic Furs merely became very successful while U2 went stratospheric.