Songfacts®:

• This song is based on one of Robert Smith's favorite books: a 1969 novel called Charlotte Sometimes by the British author Penelope Farmer. In the book, the title character finds herself transported 40 years back in time. Smith wrote this song using the same themes of time shifting and displacement.
• Mick Mansfield directed the music video, which was filmed at a disused lunatic asylum: the Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, Surrey. At the institution, art was a form of therapy (a sign warned visitors not to offer criticism of the patients' artwork), and during the shoot, Robert Smith found drawings by old inmates, which fascinated him, leading to the band's performances at benefit concerts for MENCAP (The Society For the Mentally Handicapped).
  
  The band wasn't thrilled with the video and didn't gel with a director until they started working with Tim Pope, who did most of their subsequent videos.
• The American singer/songwriter Jessica Poland goes by the alias Charlotte Sometimes.