Sara

A name I coveted for a brief moment in the '80s

Maya Angelou once wrote:

Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.

As a child of the ‘80s, born in 1980, I spent a lot of time alone. Like Angelou, and so many of us, music was my companion. I don’t remember the first song I heard or when music appeared in my life; I’m not convinced it made a grand entrance but rather lived there all along, like the freckle on my left thigh. But there are moments throughout my life, distinct and clear, when I first heard a song, and something changed in me.

In sixth grade, I spent the night at a friend’s house where, in the morning, I heard Pearl Jam’s Alive blasting from her older sister’s boombox. With electricity pumping through my veins, I thought to myself, what is this? That one song cracked open the door to a musical world far different from the one in my house. Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains - I was here for it all.

In college, my friend and I got too stoned one day and put the Abbey Road album on full blast. I became entranced when I Want You (She’s So Heavy) came on. It was like the notes sucked me into them, and there was no separation between me and the song (hey, I said I was stoned). It wasn’t my first time hearing the song, but it might as well have been. I hadn’t really heard it before, and I whispered what is this, even though I already knew.

When I was 23, a friend and I climbed into my now-husband’s red Honda Civic only to have Yo La Tengo’s You Can Have It All seep out of the speakers and take hold of me. Originally a disco song by George McCrae, it now had a slower, more melancholic tone that flooded me with a calming joy. What is this? I said out loud to no one in particular.

But that first time I remember a song punching me in the gut was years earlier, circa kindergarten or first grade. We were on our way to see some family friends when Sara by Starship came on the radio. As I heard Mickey Thomas croon Saarrraa, Saarrraa, with a mix of pain and beauty in his voice, I wished my name was Sara with a desperation I hadn’t yet experienced. It didn’t help that our family friends, the ones to whose house we were headed, had a daughter named Sara, with the same spelling and all. I remember looking at her throughout the evening with a mixture of envy, confusion, and wonder. How did she get a song named after her?

At the time, I didn’t know any songs about a girl named Lori, but there were plenty about Sara. And once I heard Starship’s Sara, I became keenly aware of the others. There was Sara Smile by Hall and Oates, which, ironically, I heard as I walked into a restaurant a few hours after I started this essay, and of course, Sara by Fleetwood Mac. To have Stevie Nicks sing your name must be incredible. All these songs felt unfair and like the name Sara held some mysterious power over all other names, especially Lori.

I remember feeling a kind of musical justice when, more than a decade later, Destiny’s Child released Say My Name, a song anyone could sing with a sense of ownership.

If only my younger self knew that a few years before I was born, the Alessi Brothers, a pop duo, came out with the song Oh Lori. It’s terrible in a laugh-out-loud sort of way, but my younger self would have loved it. Apparently, it was a hit in the UK, so at least there’s that.

Of course, my younger self didn’t know that there were plenty of other name songs before the infamous Sara, and there would be plenty after. (I started a playlist of some name songs if you are feeling curious.) It also turns out there are many songs called Lori, including a chill ambient song, a pretty rad Indian EDM song, and one by an experimental rock band from Nepal. There is also The Lori Poop Song that is so strange I kind of love it. It sounds like a mix between the Violent Femmes and my family’s homemade songs.

I’m not sure why my younger self wanted so desperately to have a song with my name or, rather, to have a name deemed song-worthy. Maybe it goes back to the idea of wanting to be seen, or perhaps I wanted to feel special like all little kids do. As I watch my own kids try to navigate the world and figure things out, I realize that much of what they are looking for is reassurance that they are okay, just as they are. And if you have a song written about you, even if it’s not written about you, there’s a feeling that you are somehow okay. Back then, maybe I really wanted a song with my name in it…or maybe I was looking for a sign that I was okay.