Why Is 'Don Quixote' Bunny and Why Is It Not Bunny?

'Bunny Is A Rider' is Caroline Polachek's quixotic fantasy about remoteness, rabbits, and riding - and in her world, they're all the same thing.

I often find myself daydreaming. As someone who spends a lot of time in an office with red carpet and walls, it isn’t hard to understand why my mind is anywhere else. My time spent staring at the framed photo of Sir Don Bradman (it’s 226 of 300), longing for the 2022 One More Haim Tour, could only be described as my ‘independence fantasy’, which also happens to be what Caroline Polachek calls her song ‘Bunny Is A Rider’ (2021).

According to Caroline, “a rider is someone who is known to ride”, and being Bunny “is about being kind of ephemeral and being on your own schedule”. If Bunny is a rider, then ‘riding’ must be escaping from the commitments of everyday life. But, as all good philosophers know, it is essential to question the question. So we must ask, is Bunny really a rider? Of Montreal’s song ‘Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider’ (2007) from Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? seems to disagree. When asked if Of Montreal inspired her, Caroline said, “imagine, if you can, more than one person combining two words in different ways to mean different things” (in the words of Danielle Haim, “fuck no”). It’s ‘Pretty In-Possible’ that this was a complete coincidence. I think it is more probable that Caroline unknowingly recalled Of Montreal’s song (written by Kevin Barnes) when writing ‘Bunny Is A Rider’ and gave the title her own meaning. But, Chairlift listeners will know that Caroline has been interested in bunnies for over a decade, “chasing the rabbit” in the 2012 song ‘Amanaemonesia’. To give Caroline the benefit of the doubt, ‘Bunny Ain't No Kind Of Rider’ doesn’t actually mention bunnies, or riding. Yet, (just like Kool A.D in Chairlift’s ‘Party’ cover) Kevin had no problem with using the f slur (to describe Bunny). Obviously, I, Bunny Is A Writer, have some bias in the matter, but Kevin Barnes doesn’t seem to have any information about Bunny’s nature to offer to his listeners. Thus, his statement that she isn’t a rider is fairly unsubstantial.

Caroline sings, “Bunny is a rider, satellite can’t find her”. Bunny isn’t just physically inaccessible by phone, she is also emotionally unavailable. She is bad at communication, coming and going as she pleases. Don Quixote shares Bunny’s detachment, delving into tales of knighthood to escape from reality. We learn that Bunny is “non-physical” - one of her many enigmatic features. She’s “unattainable”, Bunny’s non-physicality means that she is impossible to grasp ahold of. This is an odd thing to say, but, Don Quixote is non-physical (in the same sense as Bunny) because he interprets the physical (such as windmills) as the non-physical (giants). An excerpt from Part 1, Chapter 1 of Don Quixote (Cervantes) explores this. The narrator tells us that Don Quixote “converted whatsoever he saw, heard or considered, into something of which he had read in books of chivalry; he no sooner perceived the inn… as a stately castle with its four towers and pinnacles of shining silver, accommodated with a draw-bridge, deep moat”. Don Quixote is difficult to connect with because his imagination converts the physical to the non-physical. He is distanced from the rest of the world because his experiences are entirely different from everyone else’s.

Obviously, there are consequences of possessing an emotional disconnect from the world. Don Quixote’s imagination manages to cause others harm, such as when he intervenes in a conflict between a master and young boy. But, Don Quixote is not Bunny (who has “no sympathy”) because he adheres to chivalric code which calls him to help others. By following these chivalric conventions to a T, he struggles to actually do good. It’s just like virtue. Aristotle discusses the difference between intellectual and practical wisdom in the Nicomachean Ethics, “intellectual virtues for the most part are created through teaching. But character virtues come about through habit, and hence need time and experience”. In Part 2, Chapter 2 when Don Quixote says that his “intentions are always directed towards worthy ends, that is to say to do good to all and harm nobody”, he tells us that he knows he should help, but doesn’t know how (because he hasn’t cultivated habit). Bunny doesn’t act with positive intention like Don Quixote does. But, she doesn’t have negative intentions either. Instead, her lack of intention towards others is what makes her a ‘rider’. Because she doesn’t have sympathy, her lack of commitment isn’t malicious. For Bunny, it just is what it is.

Despite Don Quixote’s similarities with Bunny, the greatest relation between ‘Bunny Is A Rider’ and Don Quixote actually arises because Caroline is Don Quixote, and Bunny is her world of chivalry. Unattainability is something that Caroline desires, but “in the age of cell phones, [she’s] never been more easy to reach”. Bunny is her “fantasy”. By becoming more difficult to reach (I can’t really speak on whether she is hard to get a hold of or not, but I can confirm that my query about her merch prices in Tokyo went unanswered), Caroline is living her fantasy. Adhering to chivalric code is Don Quixote’s means of living his.

In ‘Bunny Is A Rider’ Caroline sings, “tryna go ask Alice, tryna catch that Rabbit”. This is a reference to Beatrice Sparks' novel Go Ask Alice (1971), which was named after a lyric from Jefferson Airplane’s song ‘White Rabbit’ (1967). Both of these titles clearly mention Lewis Carroll’s novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Don Quixote escapes from the tumultuous world with chivalry, while Alice escapes from the boredom of everyday life by “chasing the rabbit” down a hole. Most importantly, Caroline escapes from her phone by fantasising about avoiding commitment. Bunny, Caroline Wants To Turn Into You.