Songfacts®:

• This song, written by Rick Springfield, is a personal story of a young girl he knew named Sahara, whom he got to know when her mother brought her to his concerts. It has behind it perhaps one of the most touching stories behind any song ever, told in our Songfacts interview with Rick Springfield.
  
  Springfield first met Sahara when she came backstage with her mother at one of Springfield's concerts. Said Springfield: "Back when we first started touring in the mid-'90s, late-'90s, I used to do a meet-and-greet, before it got too crazy. We'd pick 30 people out of the crowd and they could come back and say hi and take a photo and sign autographs. That's how I met them."
  
  Springfield became friends with the girl and her mother, and they'd hang out. When going out to dinner, Sahara's spirit was strong and plucky - she once ate an octopus from a sushi bar on a dare. Not only that, but she was a sports enthusiast, playing girl's basketball on her dad's team.
  
  Tragically, Sahara was later diagnosed with a brain tumor. Springfield confides that it was just "like happening to someone in my own family, it was so close." Springfield did some benefit concerts for her, and remained close with her family. Sahara passed away at the age of 13. Springfield wrote this song about her, and sent it to her parents for approval before he went ahead with recording it, to be sure it wouldn't upset them.
• After a burst of albums when he was starting out in the '70s, Springfield took some time off to pursue acting, then released his breakthrough album Working Class Dog in 1981. After a motorcycle accident in 1988, he took a lot of time off before getting back to music in the late '90s. Since then, he released albums with relative consistency and some success. Venus In Overdrive, which includes "Saint Sahara," reached #25 on the US albums chart.