Songfacts®:

• This rocker from the second Psychedelic Furs album has a title familiar to fans of Bob Dylan, who sang about Mr. Jones on his enigmatic 1965 song "Ballad Of A Thin Man." Another Mr. Jones was David Jones, who later became David Bowie. These references were on the mind of Furs frontman Richard Butler when he wrote the lyric, which rivals Dylan's for oblique artistry. Butler mentions both Mr. and Mrs. Jones in the song, using them to represent average people who get consumed by culture.
• Richard Butler is intrigued by the concept of romance and who gets to decide what's romantic. In this song, he sings:
  
  Movie stars, and ads
  And radio define romance
  
  In a Songfacts interview with Butler, he explained: "It's basically saying that advertising and radio and pop songs sell you an idea of what love is and what it should be like, and it's largely idealized and very difficult to realize in the real world. It was a criticism of that really. Movie stars and ads define romance, don't they?"
• "Mr. Jones" was never a hit (it was released as a single in the UK but didn't chart) but it became one of the most popular live songs for the band, especially in the 2010s when they would sometimes play the Talk Talk Talk album in its entirety. The Psychedelic Furs had six members when they recorded the song, but pared down to four after the album was released. By the time they split up in 1991, they were down to three. The group reunited in 2000 and by 2009 had settled in as a six-piece once again, lending themselves to songs from their first two albums, which were both produced by Steve Lillywhite.
• Other songs to reference Dylan's Mr. Jones include "Yer Blues" by The Beatles ("feel so suicidal, just like Dylan's Mr. Jones") and "Mr. Jones" by Counting Crows.