Brand New Friend

Written by Cole and Blair Cowan and produced by Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, it was the first single from Easy Pieces in 1985 and reached 19 in the UK, spending nine weeks in the top 100. Jimmy Thomas, Jimmy Helms and Lance Ellington sang backing vocals and Anne Dudley arranged the strings. The B-side was Her Last Fling, and the 12-inch added live versions of 2CV and Speedboat.

Cole told Sounds it was about a character who knows he is not as happy as he once was and does not know what to do, and who is aware he is verging on self-pity, which Cole found funny as well. Record Mirror called it another slightly uptempo, soulful sound from the man with the sorrowful eyes, while NME's Sean O'Hagan heard it and its B-side as haunted by the ghost of Dylan, Reed and Ferry.