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.

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] 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 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.