Lost Weekend

Cole wrote the lyric after falling ill on a trip to Amsterdam to see his girlfriend and spending it shut in his hotel. The rhythm part matches Iggy Pop's The Passenger; in 2010 Cole said the chords and everything else were different, and that he wished it owed more to that song. Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley produced it at Westside Studios, with Gary Barnacle on brass, Anne Dudley's strings and a group of backing singers.

Released on 1 November 1985 as the second single from Easy Pieces, with Big World on the B-side and an extended mix on the 10-inch and 12-inch, it reached 17 in the UK and 10 in Ireland. It remains Cole's highest-charting single, with the band or solo. Smash Hits found it lovely, with chiming guitars, while NME called it "an agreeable piece of fluff" and Record Mirror heard too much jingle and not enough song. Toppermost calls it a minor classic, and notes that Cole is touchy about its piano solo.

Live

setlist.fm logs 21 band performances and 229 by Cole solo. The band played it at Hammersmith in 2004, on the released live album. At Glasgow in 2025 Cole said he was far too old to sing it, and when someone shouted for it, replied that the band did not know how to play it. The upload in the hypersongs web is the 3:14 album version, not the extended mix.