Gary's Song / Gary Come Home

About

"Gary's Song" or "Gary Come Home" is a song featured in the 2005 SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Have You Seen This Snail?" composed by Kuzuka Yayoki and performed by Stew. The song features emotional lyrics about how SpongeBob regrets neglecting Gary and longs for him to come back after the snail runs away from home when SpongeBob forgets to feed him for 10 days. The song has become the subject of parodies and memes referencing its emotional impact and inspired a TikTok trend in December 2021.

Origin

The song was written for the season 4 episode "Have You Seen This Snail?"^[1] that aired on November 11th, 2005. It played during a montage of SpongeBob and Patrick looking for Gary as Gary is being taken care of by an elderly woman. One of the first known uploads of the song to YouTube was posted on January 25th, 2009, where the full-length song was uploaded with a promotional image for the episode. As of 2017, the video sits at over 2 million views (shown below).

Spread

Various lyrics videos, tributes and parodies have appeared on YouTube in the ensuing years. For example, on October 14th, 2008, singer Colman Domingo uploaded a video of himself singing the song at a live concert, gaining over 10,000 views (shown below, left). On June 15th, 2017, Indubitably Crabby posted a live-action parody of the song, gaining over 7,300 views (shown below, right).

Starting in 2016, videos began circulating on YouTube^[6] with more YouTube Poop style remixes. For example, on July 29th, 2016, a parody written for Harambe was posted by CyanX, gaining over 150,000 views (shown below).

On January 29th, 2021, YouTuber^[8] JChaseFilms posted an original music video for a punk cover of the song^[9] by Billy Cobb gaining over 646,000 views in 11 months (shown below, left). On February 14th, the official SpongeBob SquarePants YouTube^[7] page posted an IRL music video version of the song, using miniatures to recreate the music video from the series, gaining over 44 million views in 10 months (shown below, right).

Memes referencing the song, particularly how emotional it is, have remained popular in the years since its premiere. On April 6th, Instagram^[10] page spongebob.memecentral posted a Do Men Even Have Feelings meme referencing the song, gaining over 21,600 likes in eight months (shown below, left). On May 26th, Facebook^[11] page Ouch, Right in the Childhood posted a meme referencing the song being emotional, gaining over 23,000 shares and 43,000 reactions in seven months (shown below, right).

"More Than A Pet" TikTok Trend

The song saw a resurgence on TikTok in December 2021 in videos where TikTokers show off their love of their pets. For example, on December 2nd, TikToker^[2] @abrameng posted a video showing his cat over the song, gaining over 4.2 million views in just under two weeks (shown below).

On December 8th, 2021, TikToker^[3] @kweeshyc posted a video cuddling her elderly cat Flash captioned "I’m probably going to have to say goodbye to her in the next week or so, so I want to document moments like this. This is how we always sleep. I love you, Flash" (shown below, left). The video gained over 5.1 million views in six days. Flash passed four days later according to a comment from the OP. On December 10th, TikToker^[4] @starr.wrx posted a video showing how he and some friends took in and cared for a stray dog, gaining over 16.6 million views in four days (shown below, right). The Original Sound^[5] has been used over 58,000 times by December 14th.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References