"Sara" is a song recorded by the American rock band Starship which reached number-one on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart on March 15, 1986. It was sung by Mickey Thomas, of the newly renamed band Starship, from their first album Knee Deep in the Hoopla, and Grace Slick provided the backing vocals.[1]
The recording became one of the best-selling singles of 1986 in North America. It was the band's second number-one hit after the song "We Built This City" hit that mark a few months earlier in 1985. It also became the band's first number-one song on the adult contemporary chart, where it remained for three weeks.[2] Although written by Peter and Ina Wolf, the song was named for Sara (née Kendrick), Thomas's wife at the time.
Reception
Cash Box called it a "melodic ballad [that] has a biting rock edge led by Mickey Thomas' riveting vocal" and said it has "an ethereal chorus and shy guitars."[3]
In a retrospective review from 2020, Stereogum's Tom Breihan wrote that while "'We Built This City' gets all the hate", "Sara" is "even shittier", calling it a "bad, boring '80s song, and it's pretty easy to forget its existence entirely."[4]
Music video
The music video for "Sara" featured Thomas, and actress Rebecca De Mornay as the song's titular character, in a storyline about the ending of a relationship, set on a Dust Bowl farm in the Midwest, with frequent flashbacks to what is presumably the Thomas character's childhood, and the tornado that wrecked his home and took the life of his beloved mother. It was filmed, not in the Midwest, but at an old farm residence located in west Lancaster, CA. It ends with a panoramic view of the farm, with Thomas walking down the dirt road Sara (De Mornay) has driven away on, with another dust cloud closing in.[5] The flashback portions of the music video were set in the 1950s and directed by Francis Delia.
^Sonneborn, Liz (2002). A to Z of American Women in the Performing Arts(SLICK, GRACE (Grace Wing)). Facts on File, Incorporated. p. 195. ISBN0-8160-4398-1. Slick sang supporting vocals on the band's mid-decade top 40 hits "We Built This City"(1985), "Sara"(1986), and "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now"(1987) before quitting again in 1988
^Pennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin - levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish) (1st ed.). Helsinki: Tammi. ISBN978-951-1-21053-5.
