"There's No Future in Optimism" is a song by American rock band

Garbage Garbage, trash (American English), rubbish (British English), or refuse is waste material that is discarded by humans, usually due to a perceived lack of utility. The term generally does not encompass bodily waste products, purely liquid or ...

. It was released as the lead single from Garbage's eighth studio album, '' Let All That We Imagine Be the Light'', on April 9, 2025.

Background and composition

"There's No Future in Optimism" was written by Garbage and produced by Garbage and the band's engineer,

Billy Bush William Hall Bush (born October 17, 1971) is an American radio and television host. He is a member of the Bush family, a nephew of former president George H. W. Bush and cousin of former president George W. Bush and former Florida governor Jeb B ...

. It's an

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

track with

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductors * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic c ...

elements. Lead singer

Shirley Manson Shirley Ann Manson FRSA (born 26 August 1966) is a Scottish singer, songwriter, and musician who is the lead singer of the rock band Garbage. Known for her distinctive deep voice, forthright style, and rebellious attitude, her accolades include ...

stated that she was immediately drawn to the title, which had been suggested by the other members of the band. Although she decided to keep the title as it was, the lyrics were written as a deliberate counterpoint to its pessimistic tone, "because if we allow our fatalism or our negativity to really take over, we will crumble," she conceded. The song was written in the aftermath of the

murder of George Floyd On May 25, 2020, George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black American man, was murdered in Minneapolis by Derek Chauvin, a 44-year-old White police officer. Floyd had been arrested after a store clerk reported that he made a purchase using a c ...

and is set in a contemporary Los Angeles during the

protests A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration, or remonstrance) is a public act of objection, disapproval or dissent against political advantage. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooperation in which numerous people cooperate ...

against police violence. "Above our house in Hollywood, there were helicopters all day long, for days on end. It was really precarious, chaotic and terrifying," Manson added. Manson was adamant the track be the opener of the album as a statement of intent of the entire record: "it starts out with an anthemic call to arms, a clarion call. It’s pretty much a rallying cry to all likeminded people. If you are interested in meeting this world with love, if you are willing to invest in tenderness and not violence or hate, then we are with you. You should come with us," she told in a press statement. The pro-active sentiment behind the song is also a reflection of Manson's thoughts about the power of music and art to impact culture and shape society: "even though all the pointers in our society say otherwise, I do feel music still has the power to shift atoms, shift thinking and shift positions," she emphasized.

Release and promotion

The song was first teased in a short video announcing the album's release on February 27, 2025. It was announced as the lead single from the album by drummer Butch Vig in an interview with Portal ROCKline. The band rehearsed the track with the intention to play it on their 2025

Latin American Latin Americans (; ) are the citizenship, citizens of Latin American countries (or people with cultural, ancestral or national origins in Latin America). Latin American countries and their Latin American diaspora, diasporas are Metroethnicity, ...

tour, however their manager prevented them to perform any new song before being released. On April 7, the band announced the release of the track and its music video for April 9. The song premiered on

BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It primarily plays a wide range of alternative music, from established and emerging artists and bands. In 2002 it was the first national music radio station t ...

Huw Stephens Huw Meredydd Stephens (born 25 May 1981) is a Welsh radio and television presenter, currently broadcasting on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 6 Music. Stephens founded the Sŵn music festival with John Rostron and the yearly s ...

' show at 5 PM BST.

Music video

The music video, directed by Benjy Kirkman, premiered on YouTube at the same time as the single. The cinematic

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

video, starring actors Aderayo Adenekan and Michaela Madziova, presents dystopian imagery that reflects the song’s themes, depicting a city in chaos and symbolizing the search for hope amid despair.

Reception

In an early review for ''Let All That We Imagine Be the Light'', blogger Paul Sinclair wrote on ''SuperDeluxeEdition'' that the song "has a title that doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but it has a insistent earworm of a refrain in 'If you’re ready for love'." '' Under the Radar'' selected it as the fifth best song of the week.

References

{{Garbage (band) 2025 singles 2025 songs Garbage (band) songs Song recordings produced by Butch Vig Songs written by Butch Vig Songs written by Duke Erikson Songs written by Shirley Manson Songs written by Steve Marker