Gary Come Home

You wanna hear something sad? You know how you can get a song stuck in your head, repeating it over and over and over, humming it, singing it without even realizing it in front of other people? Usually it’s a tune you heard on a radio, or saw in a movie, or maybe you played an old CD you haven’t heard in a couple of months or years and now a tune is stuck in some scratched short-term-long-term memory loop?

Here’s the sad part. Two weeks ago I bought my daughter the Yellow Album. No, that’s not a typo that should refer to the Beatles. No, this is the Spongebob Squarepants CD. Twenty-three songs. Now, some are not bad. I will go on record as saying that Spongebob is one of the funniest and wittiest cartoons out there today, and though it’s probably aimed at a more mature audience than the market segment the Little One belongs to, I don’t find it objectionable.

So we’ve been listening to the Yellow Album off-and-on for, oh, twelve or thirteen days now. That means I’ve heard it maybe eight or nine times, maybe more since I’m usually suckered into playing it in the car when we get her little sister, once on the way to Yiayia’s and once on the way home. And now I have Gary’s Song stuck in my head.

Those of you in the know may remember the song by it’s sorrowful refrain: Gary come home … Spongebob inadvertently neglects his pet snail Gary, and the little fellow has no choice but to find someone else to care for him. It’s a story of misunderstandings, of loves lost and lives torn asunder, and of ultimate redemption.

From what I understand the episode is the number-one most-watched television event for children ages something like eight to ten. If I wasn’t unsure of copyright rules and regulations, I’d pop the .wav file in right here, so in lieu of that, here’s the lyrics that have been encircling my cerebellum incessantly this past fortnight:

Gary now I know
I was wrong
I messed up
And now you’re gone

Gary I’m sorry I neglected you
Oh I never expected you
to run away and leave me feeling this empty
Your “meow” right now would sound like music to me
Please come home ’cause I miss you Gary

Gary come home
Gary come home
Gary come home

Gary can’t you see I was blind?
I'll do anything to change your mind
More than a pet you’re my best friend
Too cool to forget
Come back ’cause we are family and
Forgive me for making you want to roam
But now my heart is beating like the saddest metronome
Somewhere I hope you’re reading
My latest three-word poem

Gary come home
Gary come home
Gary come home
Gary come home
Gary come home
Gary come home
Gary come home
Gary come home

Oh

Gary come home
Gary come home

Gary won’t you come home?


(PS – my daughter has the italicized falsetto echoes in the chorus down pat.)