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Death Cab For Cutie
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5.0
"brilliant"
27 votes  

Death Cab For Cutie - What Sarah Said Lyrics

Song details
TitleWhat Sarah Said
ArtistDeath Cab For Cutie
AlbumPlans [2005], Track 9
GenreIndie
Duration06:21
Rank9,785 (*) history »
Charts- view all »
Referring urlsview all »

Song 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 stung like a violent wind,
That our memories depend,
On a faulty camera in our minds.
And I knew that you were a truth,
I would rather lose,
Than to have never lain beside at all.

Then 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.
Then the nurse comes round,
And everyone lifts their heads.
And I'm thinking of what Sarah said,
That love is watching someone die.

So who's going to watch you die?
So who's going to watch you die?
So who's going to watch you die?
submitted by xcasey on 06-08-2005
corrected by multiple people on 07-04-2007


36 comments, showing 1 to 25page 1 of 2

 Song comments
  01-07-2012 01:39 IStandAccused 
IStandAccused
 
18 posts
This song is one of the few songs that makes me cry every time I hear it. So beautiful.
  21-09-2011 05:41 lordnorton 
lordnorton
 
15 posts
I adore this song.
But, I almost wish the last line was 'Now, who's gonna watch me die?' instead of 'So who's gonna watch you die?'. The way the lyric is makes it sound like the narrator of the song is speaking to the audience, telling us, the listeners, to think about who we love and how we choose to treat the people who care about us. But, the first time I heard this song, I thought it was 'Now, who's gonna watch me die?' and it made sense to me because it was the narrator expressing how he is now alone that his lover is gone, and that he can't love again. And because Sarah is gone (I assume she's the one dying and is his lover) he now has no one to love him and therefore to watch him die...
Either way, it's a beautiful song~~
  08-02-2011 04:51 just0melanie 
just0melanie
 
14 posts
So who's going to watch you die?

Genius.
  16-08-2008 17:24 dunaluna 
dunaluna
 
90 posts
Everything about this song is pure genius!
  27-03-2007 19:42 BxWhiteBoi 
BxWhiteBoi
 
31 posts
dis song is great!!!!!!! i cant listen 2 dis song once, i listen 2 it over and over and its doesn get old.... again probably my fav dcfc song
  25-03-2007 02:08 elisa_xx 
elisa_xx
 
59 posts
for anyone who's confused;

it's about someone waiting in the waiting room at a hospital,
whose love is dying. awesome song. helps me when im down.
  22-03-2007 15:48 Loni89 
Loni89
 
1 posts
[i]Hi everyone,
This is a song I keep listening to. It's hard not to, because it gets to me all the time, over and over again. It makes me cry, but come to my senses also. Because the question he asks; 'who's gonna watch you die?'.
It's.. I don't know. Heartbreaking?
You should look up the video on YouTube. Yeah, it's 7 minutes but when you see it you will actually 'feel' the song a lot more than you probably all already do.
For those who're a bit to lazy;
You see a girl, writing with lipstick on the mirror: 'Il m'aime' (French: He loves me).
Her boyfriend (or so it seems?) is in the apartment too, sitting on the bed, obviously all fucked up (like destinchic already said..).
She walks to him, shows him the palm of her hand, it says 'un peu' on it. (French: - he loves me - a little bit). The video continues with her completing the whole French saying:
Il m'aime [he loves me]
un peu [ a little bit]
beaucoup [ a lot]
passionement [ passionally ]
a la folie [ madly ]
pas du tout [ not at all].
Needless to say it's the same thing as we do with the saying 'He loves me, He loves me not....' (only the French just HAVE to make it a little bit longer, don't they? _
But the video is really worthwhile, and beautiful. It makes you want to cry even more. Trust me.
I love it how the vid just 'starts over' at the end. The girl is beautiful too (and it's alright to say that, even when you're not a lesbian!), and fits the song perfectly. She's really 'Sarah'. What do you think?
Buh-bye!
Love,
Ilona
  26-02-2007 04:54 WOOOincubus 
WOOOincubus
 
128 posts
this song is actually outstanding... its kinda making me tear up... such a song!!!

like someone else said before, how does he get all these emotions an put them down on paper??

im actually soo shocked and amazed!!!

its too good!!

long may DCFC reign!!!
  20-02-2007 07:12 musicislife1507 
musicislife1507
 
4 posts
I notice that I am a little late responding to this song, but I just now listened to it for the first time and I teared up.

I lost my mom two years ago when I was sixteen. She was not only my mom, but she was my best friend, and we were very close since my dad wasn't around. This song is amazing. It's the only song that really captures what tremendous loss feels like. I love it, and I love Death Cab for Cutie and I hope they continue to make more great songs like this one!
  07-12-2006 17:00 chelsea920 
chelsea920
 
3 posts
the first time i heard this song i cried because it's that fucking good.

i don't think there is a hidden meaning in this song. i don't know why people are asking what "love is watching someone die" means. if you can watch someone die, that's love. you stood by them until death. it's just a straight-foward, heart-wrenching song.
  30-10-2006 22:55 cadillac_blues 
cadillac_blues
 
18 posts
i absolutely love this song.
it's so beautiful.
and it makes me cry.
  06-10-2006 10:07 lamuffin171 
lamuffin171
 
1 posts
Wow, this song means so much to me.
I lost my dad last week, and being in the ICU just killed me.
So depressing.

and it's so hard to think back on those memories.

It stung like a violent wind,
That our memories depend,
On a faulty camera in our minds.
And I knew that you were a truth,
I would rather lose,
Than to have never lain beside at all.
  18-09-2006 23:57 ell86e2 
ell86e2
 
1 posts
my dad just recently died because of an overdose, and this song just sums up our hospital stay. My dad and i had the shittest relationship and the last 6 months or so he was drunk and drugged the entire time.

"As each descending peak on the LCD,
Took you a little farther away from me."

When they took him off of the life support his heart slowly began to stop. It was stopped for a few seconds then it started to come back. moving to say the least.

Kind of off topic, but this song really spoke to me and i love it.
  24-08-2006 00:34 destinchic 
destinchic
 
1 posts
My boyfriend gave me the best explanation of this song. Its about not wanting to let go. The guy is sitting in his apartment all fucked up and he calls his ex girlfriend. All the hospital imagery is about the relationship ending. Think about it.
  13-08-2006 23:21 Rim 
Rim
 
5 posts
Death cab explains and captures the feeling of what love really is about,
and they explain it in so few words : "Love is watching someone die",
because what could be more heartbreaking than loosing someone you love?
Now, of course I do not mean that love should be about getting your heart broken, but it's about letting yourself love someone more than youlove yourself.

I think that is what everything comes down to in the end,
love is about being there - through the bad and good.
Just my thought.

  19-07-2006 08:35 little_foxie 
little_foxie
 
1 posts
brilliant song. i love it to bits. i actually read an interview about this song, and ben said it was inspired by this friend of his, a girl who was walking one day with her husband and burst into tears because she realized that one day one of them would have to watch the other die. how said is that.
you were right by the way, it is about ben being trapped in the emergency room waiting for news on somebody injured or dying that was close to him.

btw, i saw these guys in concert this week and they were tres brilliant. i want to go again!!
  19-02-2006 14:44 sarah_2204 
sarah_2204
 
3,596 posts
Great song, great band.
  19-02-2006 13:41 drumpz 
drumpz
 
5 posts
it's a cleaning product
  16-02-2006 02:17 arcadianskye 
arcadianskye
 
22 posts
What is 409? From the line "reeked of piss and 409"...i feel like an idiot becuase i'm sure its obvious but i jsut can't put my finger on it.
  02-02-2006 08:37 drumpz 
drumpz
 
5 posts
Man this song is nuts. I work in an ER where we see a lot of serious accidents and whatnot who end up going to the ICU with a poor prognosis. I've got no doubt he's experienced this with someone he lost. These lyrics brilliantly capture the atmosphere. Sad, but brilliant writing.

I think I know what you mean elsweeno, if you really love someone you'll be with them through the good and bad (death seems pretty bad).
  23-01-2006 03:12 saranob 
saranob
 
16 posts
I love this song to death, my favorit death cab song bye far, and it dosent hurt that my name is sara! hehe

Death Cab for Cutie, just keeps getting better and better, still seems to surpirse me
  08-01-2006 20:20 Jaff 
Jaff
 
1,582 posts
Love is watching someone die, so who's going to watch you die? Who's going to watch you die?

Beautiful song.
  05-01-2006 09:27 LyricalySpeakin 
LyricalySpeakin
 
3 posts
The beauty of music is that you're supposed to draw your own conclusions. Find out what the song means to you . It's a beautiful song regardless of what you get from it tho.
  05-12-2005 19:44 JamieAfterHours 
JamieAfterHours
 
24 posts
absolutely a great song... so much like poetry, and it really got me to think about the lyrics instead of just listening to the music...
  29-11-2005 17:27 Mege73 
Mege73
 
1 posts
The first line is what gets me.

And it came to me then, that every plan is a tiny prayer to father time.

I can't stop listening to this song. And it did make me cry. Having lost someone, I don't think that there is anything hidden in the lyrics here. To write something so profound and so powerful, he had to have lost someone. Just my thought.

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