Real Gone Kid

Ross wrote the song about a performance by the former Lone Justice singer Maria McKee, seen while Deacon Blue and Lone Justice toured together. The narrator uses real gone kid to mean craziness, a reference to her wild onstage style. It was issued on 3 October 1988 as the first single from When the World Knows Your Name, with the B-sides Little Lincoln and covers of Sam and Dave's Born Again and Husker Du's It's Not Funny Anymore.

It reached eight in the UK, their first top 10 hit, as well as 10 in Ireland and five in New Zealand, and it was number one in Spain for three weeks. The single's seven inch version runs 4:03 and the 12 inch extended version 7:04. In the video the band play against a white background, cut with people queuing for a photo booth, and Ross jumps off a Yamaha CP-70 piano. Various mixes were used in Boots pharmacy adverts in the UK from 2015 to 2017, and the song is heard in the 2015 film Eddie the Eagle.