“Optimistic” by Radiohead

"Optimistic" is the closest thing to a straight-up rock song on Kid A, Radiohead's fourth album, from 2000, and it went out to radio in the US and Europe as a promotional single. Thom Yorke says he and Jonny Greenwood wrote it in 1998 while crossing a desert, and the refrain's shrug of reassurance came from his partner, Rachel Owen, who offered it when he was fed up with how the band's recording was going.

Nigel Godrich produced it with the band, and it rolls on a thick, circling groove while Yorke sounds half consoled and half sarcastic; NME's April Clare Welsh heard a jab at the pressures of fame in it. Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone called it an open tribute to R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People and heard Blind Faith in the hook.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.