Jesika von Rabbit covers R.E.M.’s “Drive”

The single follows up her 2025 album, “Bunnywood Babylon”.
Keys, harpsichord, vocals – Jesika von Rabbit
Acoustic guitar, bass- Lee Joseph
Recorded at Rabbit Ranch, Joshua Tree
Mastered by Pat Kearns at Goat Mountain Recording Studio, Joshua Tree
Available from all streaming platforms, on Dionysus Records

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Too often artists will cover a song, especially a classic, just to ride the coattails of something better than them. Too often the attempt is merely an artist aping the original. The steadfast rule should be, if you’re gonna do it, make it yours or let it be.

Jesika von Rabbit has done just that with her take on the R.E.M. classic “Drive”. She boldly rejected the original’s southern gothic premise, and lifted it into an ethereal space of yearning and loss.

REM leaned into a gorgeous detached profundity, encouraging a sense of self efficacy, a quiet fist raised defiantly in the air. Yet, von Rabbit’s version carries it out of the physical world completely, capturing a state of loss, longing, even hopelessness, that has been omnipresent the past several years.  It feels less like a song unfolding and more like an intimate whisper from someone who broke your heart a long time ago.

“I love many of their songs, but Drive has such a lonely haunted feel and I wanted to do something even more sparse with it, she explains. “I’m a big R.E.M. fan, I grew up listening to them and feel they’re a bit underrated. Not to say they don’t have a huge fan base, but you don’t hear them being referenced that much anymore.”

Minimalistic and sparse, she opens with a heavily gated reverb piano, there yet afar. Her vocals are at once urgent and questioning, knowing she isn’t going to get any answers from the siren calling from afar, who are more a lonely echo than a catechism.

The bridge is typical von Rabbit, a luminous interlude of sparkling harpsichord, so bizarrely out of place that it fits perfectly. Lee Joseph’s understated guitar work strums earnestly beneath, bringing just enough scaffolding to keep the piece from drifting away entirely.

Von Rabbit’s version of “Drive” is a beautiful apparition, a rush of windswept Mojave stardust, heard in passing, already fading as she arrives.