“The Spider and Me” is a blissful song about the wonders of nature, viewing humanity’s relationship to the animals of Earth through a loving relationship between someone and a spider. The lyrics state that there’s no difference between humans and arachnids as we’re both “from the same cloth” — mortal creatures on Earth. The song plays around with the idea of love between human and spider with its bridge containing a strange, passionate back-and-forth. “The Spider and Me” specifically mentions the Huntsman Spider (Sparassidae), a species of spider found mostly in Oceania, known for their size and for their proclivity to co-inhabit human houses.
A demo for the song was first heard on the band’s unannounced demo stream and released on Demos Vol. 2: Music To Eat Bananas To. It is a simple instrumental version that is close to the structure of the final version, though with a marimba solo section instead of the long passage of Joey talking to the spider. The studio version was performed by Alex Brettin (electric piano), Ambrose (vocals), Cavs (drum kit 1/drum kit 2), Joey (bass), Lucas (electric piano/Mellotron) and Stu (“wah wah guitar”/vocals/Mellotron). Stu later commented on his Mellotron solo during Gizzard’s 2020 Reddit AMA, saying “it took so many takes to get that!” The song was released on August 18th, 2017 as the sixth song on Sketches of Brunswick East. The album cover references it with a spider in a window hanging from a web.
“The Spider and Me” has never been played live but was rehearsed for the 2019 tour. In the band’s 2020 Reddit AMA Joey said “We nearly got it together for the shows last year, but cookie cut his finger and could never make practice the silly goose.”