Saul Williams names “Optimistic” among his favourite anthems

Saul Williams names Radiohead's “Optimistic” as one of his favourite anthems, alongside Public Enemy's “Fight the Power”. Williams, who has covered “Lucky” in the past, was talking to John Carluccio of Barnes & Noble.com ahead of his new self-titled album. He had just been explaining that he has long been trying to write anthems of his own, and that “Act III, Scene 2 (Shakespeare)” is one.

When Carluccio calls both songs mantra-like, Williams agrees that mantras and anthems go together. The chorus of “Optimistic”, he says, goes beyond even a mantra, past words, into what he calls just open-air screaming¹.