Optimistic (Radiohead song)

"Optimistic" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead from their fourth studio album, Kid A (2000). It was produced by Radiohead with their producer, Nigel Godrich, and was released as a promotional single in the US and Europe, receiving radio play.

Composition
According to the singer, Thom Yorke, he and Radiohead's lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, wrote "Optimistic" in 1998 while traveling through a desert. The refrain, "Try the best you can / The best you can is good enough", was an assurance by Yorke's partner, Rachel Owen, when he was frustrated with Radiohead's recording progress. April Clare Welsh of NME interpreted the line, along with "flies are buzzing around my head / vultures circling the dead", as a possible comment on the pressures of fame. The lyrics were described as possibly ironic.

Rob Sheffield of Rolling Stone described "Optimistic" as an "explicit homage" to the 1992 R.E.M. album Automatic for the People, with similar vocal rhythms. In another article, Sheffield likened the hook to Blind Faith. Critics noted how "Optimistic" was similar to Radiohead's rock sound, while other Kid A songs differed from it.

Reception
Sam Kemp from Far Out Magazine placed "Optimistic" in the last spot of a list ranking Kid A songs, saying that, although it is the most straightforward from it, it "just doesn't have that wonderful sense of unfamiliarity that defines so many of the tracks on the rest of the album."

Writers of Consequence of Sound named it the 30th-best Radiohead song, and said it is "the most 'Radiohead' song on the album" and that it "doesn't best represent the songs that surround it". PopMatters ranked it as the 6th best Kid A track, stating that it is "quite easily the closest that we get to a conventional rock song here[, b]eing the only predominantly guitar-based song" on the album.

Marc Hogan of Vulture said that "Optimistic" "drew extra attention at the time for being a rare rock-oriented brooder on its Aphex Twin- and Autechre-aspiring album home. If the rest of Kid A looked to expand Radiohead listeners' boundaries, 'Optimistic' was the band's way of showing what it could already do within the old ones." He ranked the song as the band's 21st-best. April Clare Welsh of NME said that it is "probably the most Bends-like track Kid A has to offer", ranking it as the 5th best on the album.

Chris DeVille of Stereogum opined that "Optimistic" "is probably the most underrated song in Radiohead's discography". It was included on Radiohead: The Best Of (2008) and Kid A Mnesia (2021).

Radiohead

 * Colin Greenwood
 * Jonny Greenwood
 * Ed O'Brien
 * Philip Selway
 * Thom Yorke

Additional personnel


 * Nigel Godrich – production, engineering, mixing
 * Gerard Navarro – production assistance, additional engineering
 * Graeme Stewart – additional engineering