Lost Wishes is a limited edition cassette release by The Cure, containing four previously unreleased instrumental tracks which were recorded during the Wish sessions in 1991. It was not commercially released and was made available only via mail order from the Fiction Records offices in London.

All profits from this release were donated to the Portsmouth Down's Syndrome Trust.

Printed on the cassette cover was a message, "It started because Porl had written an excellent weird thing, very stirring, with bagpipes and harmonium which he really wanted to do but it didn't fit any of the lyrics I'd been writing. Simon had a piece too which is nominally called 'Off to Sleep', a nursery rhyme kind of sound, very gentle and sweet but if I tried to sing over it, it would get very morose. So we hit on the idea of a separate album of purely instrumental things...the fifth one sounded like a Cure backing track without me singing. That seemed a bit pointless so we shelved it for the moment but we'll probably get back to it." – Robert Smith

The Cure are an English alternative rock band formed in Crawley, West Sussex in 1976. The band has experienced several line-up changes, with frontman, vocalist, guitarist and principal songwriter Robert Smith being the only constant member. The Cure first began releasing music in the late 1970s with its debut album Three Imaginary Boys (1979); this, along with several early singles, placed the band as part of the post-punk and New Wave movements that had sprung up in the wake of the punk rock revolution in the United Kingdom. During the early 1980s, the band's increasingly dark and tormented music helped form the gothic rock genre.

After the release of Pornography (1982), the band's future was uncertain and Smith was keen to move past the gloomy reputation his band had acquired. With the 1982 single "Let's Go to Bed" Smith began to place a pop sensibility into the band's music (as well as a unique stage look). The Cure's popularity increased as the decade wore on, especially in the United States where the songs "Just Like Heaven", "Lovesong" and "Friday I'm in Love" entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart. By the start of the 1990s, The Cure were one of the most popular alternative rock bands in the world. The band is estimated to have sold 27 million albums as of 2004. The Cure have released thirteen studio albums, 10 EPs and over thirty singles during the course of their career. Since 2010, they have been working on a fourteenth studio album.