In 2001, Sufjan Stevens followed up his debut album, a Sun Came, with Enjoy Your Rabbit, a series of fourteen instrumentals programmatically inspired by the animals of the Chinese Zodiac. Much later, in 2006, Bryce Dessner (The National, Dark Was the Night compilation, Clogs) suggested that Sufjan re-arrange the entirety of Enjoy Your Rabbit for Osso, a string quartet that had previously contributed strings to Sufjan's Illinois and My Brightest Diamond's Bring Me the Workhorse. The result is Run Rabbit Run.