A New Documentary Uncovers One of Pop's Tragic Mysteries: Q Lazzarus
Most listeners who had heard of the genre-bending artist — if they'd heard of her at all — encountered her song 'Goodbye Horses' in Jonathan Demme's 1991 blockbuster 'The Silence of the Lambs' as the backdrop to the scene where the serial killer Buffalo Bill applies makeup and poses strikingly nude. The creepy new wave track, with its minor-key, sci-fi synths and androgynous vocals, harmonized impeccably with the scene's ominous visuals.
'Goodbye Horses' was the only single Q Lazzarus officially released on a physical format while she was alive, but it came with an incredible story: Demme had encountered the musician at her day job — as a taxi driver — and fell in love with the music she played during the ride. But after her song's star turn in his film, Q Lazzarus's career stalled, and by the mid-90s, she had seemingly vanished entirely.
Some fans and journalists made efforts to track down this enigmatic voice over the years, but the filmmaker who ended up telling her story in the new documentary 'Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus' met the artist born Diane Luckey the same way Demme did: in her cab.
'Getting into her car was a completely coincidental or fated, as Q and I both felt, meeting,' Eva Aridjis Fuentes, the movie's director, said in an interview. The two sang along to Neil Young's 'Heart of Gold'; Aridjis Fuentes thought the woman behind the wheel looked familiar, and asked if she'd ever seen Q Lazzarus. They formed a friendship that resulted in Aridjis Fuentes's film, which opens in a handful of cities including London, Los Angeles and New York next month, with a streaming release expected to follow. On Friday, the Brooklyn record label Sacred Bones will release its soundtrack — effectively the first full-length Q Lazzarus release.
'We're doing this documentary to let you know what went wrong and what happened,' Luckey says in the film. 'The truth' about why she disappeared: 'Because I had to.'
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