“Hopeful” by Josh Ritter

"Hopeful" comes from The Beast In Its Tracks, the seventh studio album by the American singer-songwriter Josh Ritter, released in March 2013. Ritter wrote it alone, words and music, and sings it with Josh Kaufman and Liam Hurley joining in; Kaufman also plays double bass and guitar, Hurley drums and Sam Kassirer handles the keyboards.

Kassirer, who had been working with Ritter since 2007's The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter and played keyboards in his Royal City Band, produced the album at the Great North Sound Society in Maine. It took 18 months to write and record, and plenty got thrown out along the way: Ritter has said the songs from the first months after everything came crashing down, when he was full of rage and manic energy, came out forced.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz.