The Sarah in “Hello Sarah” is the original Sarah, but our narrator is somebody very much removed from that world.

Track: “Hello Sarah”
Album: Unreleased

There are people who must have heard “Hello Sarah” back in the 1990s. It was never officially released, though someone archived this comment from John Darnielle on the band’s forums in 2009 where he said that he thought it was taped but was definitely recorded on a radio session. My guess is it was played a few times (or more than a few times) in the early days but then unearthed a few times for more modern solo sets as songs like this tend to come back. The two “modern” performances that are documented are one in 2018, where it was the only unreleased song played that night, and this recorded one from DC in 2009. There are, certainly, others, but this is what we have.

On those same forums, Darnielle called this song a “fever-dream of a guy who… imagines himself as Abraham reborn.” Without that comment, would your mind go to Abraham’s wife when trying to guess who the titular Sarah was? Maybe, or maybe it should, but I know mine wouldn’t. Sarah and Abraham gave birth to a child despite her advanced age, which is a literal miracle in the narrative of the Bible. Sarah was heard to laugh at the idea that it would happen, which is what I think we’re meant to recall in the final verse here. Maybe that’s reaching, but at the very least through these (relatively) ancient forum posts, we can picture what our narrator here is picturing.