Veteran rockers Jefferson Starship were rechristened Starship after founding member Paul Kantner left the band in 1984 because he was unhappy with its move toward a more pop sound. The change in the group’s direction was a commercially successful one.
Videos by American Songwriter
Starship’s first single, the pop-rock anthem “We Built This City”, topped the Billboard Hot 100. It was something Jefferson Starship and its predecessor band Jefferson Airplane never did.
“We Built This City” from Starship’s 1985 album Knee Deep In The Hoopla enjoyed a two-week run at No. 1 in November of that year.
The second single from the album, the breakup ballad “Sara”, also hit No. 1 on the Hot 100. It reached the top spot on this day (March 15) in 1986.
“Sara” replaced Mr. Mister’s “Kyrie” at the Hot 100’s pinnacle and spent one week there. It was bumped from No. 1 by Heart’s first chart-topping single, “These Dreams”.
“Sara” was co-written by Austrian producer-songwriter-keyboardist Peter Wolf and his wife, Ina. Wolf had begun working with Jefferson Starship on the band’s 1984 album, Nuclear Furniture, co-writing two songs on the record and contributing synth and electronic-drum programming to a few tracks.
Wolf served as a co-producer on Knee Deep In The Hoopla and played keyboards throughout that album. He also co-wrote “We Built This City” with longtime Elton John lyricist Bernie Taupin, Martin Page, and Dennis Lambert. Interestingly, “These Dreams” also was co-written by Taupin and Page.
“Sara” was named after Starship lead singer Mickey Thomas’ then-wife. The couple eventually divorced.
About the “Sara” Music Video
A music video for “Sara” enjoyed heavy rotation on MTV at the time. The clip was set on a midwestern prairie farm, and featured Thomas and actress Rebecca De Mornay as a couple who are breaking up.
The video features black-and-white flashbacks to Thomas’ character when he was a young boy. It also includes grainy color film clips that show De Mornay’s and Thomas’ characters in happier times.
As the video proceeds, we discover that the mother of Thomas’ character was killed in a tornado that rips through the farm and damages his home. The video ends with De Mornay leaving Thomas and driving away as an ominous storm bears down on the farm.
Thomas’ Recent Comments About “Sara”
In a 2024 interview with the Something Else! webzine, Thomas suggested that “Sara” has more enduring appeal than Starship’s other two chart-topping hits—“We Built This City” and 1987’s “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”.
“When you think about the exuberance pop of ‘We Built This City,’ or the kind of mainstream fashion of ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now,’ ‘Sara’ had a solemn quality to it—and much more depth musically,” he maintained. “That’s the principal reason it’s held up better than the others.”
Mickey also pointed out, “Wolf … wrote [‘Sara’] for me,” adding, “He’s a great musician, classically trained. He wrote something that was unusual for that time, something with a kind of haunting quality to it.”
Thomas also told the webzine that his musical friends in Los Angeles at the time were impressed by the track’s sonic excellence.
As he recalled, “[A]s soon as ‘Sara’ hit the radio, [they] were calling me and saying, ‘Wow, man. I love that. How did you get that sound?’ It was an audiophile song.”
(Photo by Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Leave a Reply
Only members can comment. Become a member. Already a member? Log in.