After one too many times being mistaken for a cow in VRChat I was late-night ranting about it on Mastodon (as one does), during which I said I should write a song about this except it would probably make things worse.

I shared the thread with my friend Jax, who is a fox, and she told me that she is always somehow getting mistaken for a wolf or a jackal, and she’d love to hear a song about all the different ways that people get confused about species in VRChat.

So that made this song pop into my head, and I decided I’d record it for my upcoming album, Misfits.

I tested it as new material at a couple of shows and the response was overwhelming, and several people asked me where they could get it right now. I told them it was going to be on my next album and I didn’t know when that’d be done, and they were very disappointed by this.

Anyway, after a bit more time and thinking I realized that maybe this song didn’t really go with Misfits (ironically), and that it could be released as a single. So here it is.

Lyrics: Lyrics: Species Confusion

These horns upon my head are so often misread The conversation after a frustrating retread So many assertions from the very badly-bred Please listen to what I tell you right now

So many people get my species in a misconfusion As if the whole wide world is under a mass delusion Please use your eyes and ears and brain and constitution I am so obviously not a cow

That girl is a fox, not a wolf, not a jackal That bird has a beak that is obviously grackle A bat’s not a dog, nor a furry polliwog It’s an aesthetic, not a racial analog

Please listen to someone when they say what they are Even if you can’t tell wickerbeast from nardotaur Your first assumption wrong, so please listen to this song I am not a cow!

Back to me, where’s my hoof? Oh that’s right I have a mitten I don’t moo, but I rawr, or I meow like I’m a kitten Tail of a Fraggle, of which I am often smitten So you might wonder just what I am

With the heart-shaped nose and the plaid chromatophores Sometimes vinyl, sometimes static, plush or something more Or that one part of me where someone can count to four I’m a critter, anthropomorphic human

That girl is a fox, not a wolf, not a jackal That bird has a beak that is obviously grackle A bat’s not a dog, nor a furry polliwog It’s an aesthetic, not a racial analog

Please listen to someone when they say what they are Even when you can’t tell wickerbeast from nardotaur Your first assumption wrong, so please listen to this song I am not a cow!

Why is there a problem, are you feeling indecision Do you need to know what I am with extreme precision? When you think of me what do you now envision? Think carefully before you make a bad decision

This is a problem I only have in VRC I’ve had this fursona since around 2003 Then again some other people think that I’m a bee Why is it so hard to know what people think of me

If you are unsure, if you ever have a doubt About someone’s fursona and what they are all about And you want to know why they have a certain snout You can always ask them what they are

Have an open mind and I think that you will find The challenge of assumption, stereotypes unwind People are just people and we should all be so kind Respect the answers given, you’ll go far…

And I am not a cow!