Death Cab for Cutie - What Sarah Said
Death Cab for Cutie - What Sarah Said


Death Cab for Cutie - What Sarah Said Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Plans
Released: 2005

What Sarah Said Lyrics


And it came to me then
That every plan
Is a tiny prayer to father time

As I stared at my shoes
In the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409

And I rationed my breaths
As I said to myself
That I'd already taken too much today

As each descending peak
On the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me

Amongst the vending machines
And year old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye

It sung like a violent wind
That our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds

And I knew that you were truth
I would rather loose
Than to have never lain beside at all

And I looked around
At all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself

Cause there's no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous paces bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes round
And everyone lifts their head
But I'm thinking of What Sarah Said

That love is watching someone die

So who's gonna watch you die

Writer/s: BENJAMIN GIBBARD, NICHOLAS HARMER
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

What Sarah Said
  • Sarah is an acquaintance of lead singer Ben Gibbard. The narrator is the one that is dying. His wife is standing with him waiting for his inevitable death and he is saying that he knew death would come for one of them at some point. She shows her love by standing with him, and he asks her, "who's gonna watch you die?" because he will already be gone.
  • This song very nearly didn't make the album. Ben Gibbard said on his record label's website: "It stewed for a year and a half."
  • Gibbard (from his record label's website): "The song was inspired by a friend. She was walking with her husband one day and just burst into hysterical tears because she realized that one day one of the two of them would have to watch the other die."
  • In an article in Paste magazine, Gibbard wrote: "I feel that songwriters are held to a different standard than almost any other type of writer - some fans get genuinely upset if I admit that a song that they held close to their heart was not based on actual events in my life. Like 'What Sarah Said': I was never in a waiting room in a hospital waiting for news that somebody was going to die. I've been in hospital waiting rooms before, waiting for a doctor's appointment, and I got a sense of the general vibe of the room - not a joyous place - and I decided to set a song there."