San Francisco singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Said Sara (aka David Benson) has released a stark, minimalist acoustic ballad, “Same.”
Recorded at The Guest Room and Yosemite Studios in Benson’s hometown of San Francisco, and mastered by Jesse Nichols at The Atomic Garden West in nearby Oakland, “Same” is a richly dark and cathartic song about the torment of wanting and missing, and how we torture ourselves even further to crush those feelings.
Over a bed of acoustic guitar, banjo, and piano, Benson effortlessly carries “Same” with his raw, pointed vocals, which recall Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Cat Stevens.
Skinned alive
Your rapier lips belie
You’re sweeter than shaved ice
The one breath of life
Was holding hands with you
Now every moment’s spent in an attempt at feeling
The same
Le meme
Suspended – same
Le meme
Sustained, the same
Written after Benson rearranged songs by Belly and Sinead O’Connor for a solo acoustic performance, “Same” is described as a “genuine outpouring.”
“The music for ‘Same’ wrote itself to a large extent and was completed in less than a week,” Benson expands. “The lyrics proved to be a more strenuous undertaking. I had ideas about the strains of missing someone, and the blurry sentiments attached to emotional concealment and heartache, and the ways in which we torture ourselves even more inside that torment. In addition, there’s the concept of trauma: Suffering is represented through vocal images of witches, warriors and goddesses and how they give tragic affection and receive death”
Born and raised in San Francisco, Benson grew up listening to 1970s singer-songwriters such as Cat Stevens, Jim Croce, James Taylor, and Lindsey Buckingham. Through the ‘90s, Benson wrote dark, stripped-down hymns that would eventually appear on Said Sara’s self-titled 2020 EP. Prior to launching Said Sara, Benson performed in the now-defunct post-punk-pop band Transition., with whom 1994’s Spine LP was released via SST Records. He also performs in the SF-based death metal outfit Acephalix, whose 2022 album Theothanatologist was engineered by Grammy winner Greg Wilkinson and topped numerous year-end lists.
Following singles “I Star As You” (2020), ”Bleedways” (2021), “Sea” (2022), “Same” is Benson’s most intimate and catchiest release to date.
When he is not performing, Benson is a Special Education teacher at a public high school in San Francisco, where he currently lives with his family.
