Is Bunny a Rider?
Or, I love when my friends talk to each other.
I was visiting LA when Caroline Polachek’s album, Pang, came out in 2019. I’d never listened to Chairlift (still haven’t, oops) but a friend (hi, Cullen!) had her playing while we were getting ready for dinner. “New Normal” became a temporary anthem, the off-kilter optimism setting a perfect tone for taking mushrooms in Big Bear and moving through the beginnings of the new relationship that was waiting for me back home.
This hooked me on Caroline. Per my 6:8 obsession (we’ll get there!), I eventually exhausted “Caroline Shut Up.” Could just be word association, but this song often reminds me of “Caroline, No” from Pet Sounds, and I wonder if she had that song in mind, though thematically they’re almost opposite: The Beach Boys about losing the spark of love, and Caroline about losing yourself in love (she’s self-admittedly not a deep Beach Boys fan, but has said she wants “Surf’s Up” as her funeral song).
Her song “Bunny Is A Rider” was the first single from her album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You (another probably irrelevant connection, but the album cover does remind me of Neko Case’s Middle Cyclone).
Caroline describes the song on Charli XCX’s podcast Best Song Ever as “psychedelic sexy nonsense” where “none of [the verses] make sense.” Despite Caroline claiming none of it makes sense, there are some moments in these lyrics. The song’s title and “no sympathy” are repeated throughout, and the chorus ends with “don't drop my name.”
Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? came out in 2007. The album is high-energy and dramatic, with esoteric song titles and lyrics that explore relationships, breakups, casual sex, drugs, rejection, and nights out. Despite its density and wobbling on the precipice of pretension, the album is fun, touching, and cathartic, with several breakout songs that build a great story.
The album’s eighth track is “Bunny Ain’t No Kind of Rider.” The song takes place during a night out, and Kevin Barnes isn’t into it. He seems to be on the outside looking in, not caught up in the moment but observing what happens to him. Not only observing, but judging: “Saw her at Go kissing girls, what a shock / I said you must be an artist / She muttered her reply, I was judging her friend.”
Through the evening, he hangs with Eva (the presumed “her” in the first line of the song). They end up outside a church and, though he’s a bit tempted by her (“her come on made me blush”), he eventually tells her:
Stop! Hey!
You must be aware I'm not alone
I've got a tigress back at home and besides
You wouldn't know what to do with me
He mentions his tigress at a convenient time, when he is starting to get into it. Maybe he’s feeling guilty that he is a bit into Eva, and needs to undercut her.
And man, does he. The song’s chorus doesn’t just let Eva know he isn’t into her:
Eva, I'm sorry, but you will never have me
To me you're just some faggy girl
And I need a lover with soul power
And you ain't got no soul power
In her Best Song Ever interview, when asked about who Bunny is, Caroline said, “Bunny is all of us. Anyone can be Bunny if you make yourself a bit unavailable…even if it’s a temporary state.”
If Bunny is Eva (“Bunny Ain’t A Rider” meaning, to Barnes, that she’s not someone you link yourself to, that you go along with in the end), perhaps what Caroline is getting at is that Bunny may be unremarkable to Barnes, but all he had with her is a moment and she’s just moving on through, trying to have a fun night. In responding to Of Montreal, Caroline gives Bunny an unaffected power and her own perspective. I don’t think that’s nonsense.
No playlist this week, but plenty of good stuff to listen to in here.
Thanks for sticking with me.
Kate Coleman