The Q Lazzarus Effect
The rise, fall, resurrection, and untimely death of Q Lazzarus, and how Western society continues to fail Black women who dare to dream of the spotlight.
Like most, my introduction to Q Lazzarus was through The Silence of the Lambs. Specifically, the infamous scene where the Ted Levine’s Buffalo Bill dances to Goodbye Horses in a kimono, toying with his nipple piercing and applying a buttery peach lipstick- his victim’s scalp perched atop his own head.
The song quickly became a cult classic alongside the Big Five winner, solidifying itself as a bona fide cultural moment of the 20th century. For year I have been enamoured with it, the power behind the voice and the haunting, dreamlike harmonies make it a timeless, unforgettable track. But it’s not just the sound that gives it such weight; its profound lyrics truly make it a work of art that holds space in the depths of your gut. According to William Garvey, songwriter and good friend of Q, the lyrics are about “transcend[ing] over those who see the world as only earthly and finite”. In Hindu philosophy, “horses” represents the five senses, and so the title lyrics “Goodbye Horses, I’m flying over you” translates to a rejection of the senses that keep us tied to the physical realm- the singer desperately clinging to the hope of a spiritual enlightenment, but knowing that eventually she must return back to Earth to process her grief.
Yet, I must admit that it wasn’t until I heard about the upcoming release of Eva Aridjis Fuentes’ new documentary about Q’s life that I realised this is, in fact, a Black woman's voice- not an obscure, male-led British post-punk band.
I feel awful about my assumption, but was it really just my mistake, or was it a consequence of something bigger? The industry has long refused to embrace Black women outside the rigid boxes it assigns them, and it begs the question- would Q Lazzarus’ career have been different had she been a white man with ambition and something to say? Why did the music industry refuse to see her for the star she clearly was?
The stars aligned
It’s mid 1980’s New York and there’s a snowstorm blowing a hoolie over the Manhattan sunset. Big shot, award-winning director Jonathan Demme has some urgent Hollywood biz to attend to. He’s got no time to be wandering the frozen streets in a blizzard, so he hails a cab. Childminder, cab driver, and musician Diane Luckey sees the snow battering his $2,000 suit and pulls over. Now, Demme must’ve seemed like a flashy guy, because Diane feels compelled to ask him if he works in the music industry, to which he replies, “Not exactly.” Diane is suspicious. She knows what’s up. So she coyly slips her demo tape into the cassette player, hoping for just this reaction…
“Oh my god! What is this and who are you?” Demme gasps in the back seat, mesmerised by the haunting yet ethereal vocals and new-age but ancient sound. He became an instant believer. He featured Q’s music in several of his films, beginning with Something Wild (1986), where her track “Candle Goes Away” appears, and then Married to the Mob (1988), which marked the first use of Goodbye Horses on screen. But it was The Silence of the Lambs (1991) that would immortalise both the song and Q Lazzarus in pop culture history.
So then Q became an international superstar and lived happily ever after… Is what would have happened if she looked like Siouxsie Sioux and dressed like Adam Ant.
Too Black to Back
Q Lazzarus was never offered a record deal. No chart-topping hits. No press interviews. She had a powerful voice, a striking look, a cinematic origin story and still, the doors stayed shut. Dead-bolted by the big burly bouncer of the Pretty Princess VIP Club. And it certainly wasn’t because she didn’t have the creds, she had all the backing from Demme, a now Oscar-winning director, she just simply didn’t fit the mould. She was a large Black woman with dreadlocks and a gothic style- a glitch in the algorithm. Too Black for the alternative charts and too weird for the Black charts.
Refusing to give in to the industry’s expectations, she vanished. Not into mystique or myth, but into the brutal reality that often awaits those who are denied the space to exist where they ought to thrive. She turned to crack cocaine, spent years in an abusive relationship that isolated her and ended up behind bars. A trajectory far too many Black women face- she wasn’t nurtured or guided, she was discarded and in the absence of opportunity or support, she did what so many do: went into survival mode.
All things pass
It’s pretty devastating but it’s not all a big sob story, she did get back on her feet, she quit the drugs, settled down in a healthy marriage and raised a child. She lived a full life in near-anonymity, working and healing. And maybe, after everything, that was enough for her.
Then in 2019, the stars aligned once more- because of course they did, in another big yellow taxi. Director Eva Aridjis found herself singing along to Neil Young’s Heart of Gold with her cab driver when a strange feeling crept in: the voice, the face, the energy, it all felt very familiar. Before getting out, Aridjis took a chance. “You ever heard of Q Lazzarus?” she asked. At first, the driver brushed it off. She’d spent years dodging journalists and curious fans, deliberately slipping out of the spotlight and keeping her past to herself. But just as Aridjis was about to step out of the cab, the driver looked at her and said, quietly, “Yes, I’m Q. How did you know?”
Just like that. A legend in hiding, revealed not with a spotlight or a stage, but through a shared song in the front seat of a cab. Shortly after, they began working on a documentary that would finally tell the story Q had kept close for so long—the rise, the fall, and the woman behind the voice.
immortalised
After a lifetime’s worth of trying, push-back, succeeding and faltering had finally started to come to fruition, Q broke her leg and was hospitalised.
“She died the way Black women die when they go to hospital…through neglect. Look at the data. How many Black women die in surgery or during childbirth, compared with other races? It’s an ugly truth.” says her son, James.
The statistics are horrifying—Black women in America are three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related complications than white women. Disbelief, dismissal and delay is all too often experienced by BAME women. These aren’t isolated incidents. They’re systemic patterns. Q Lazzarus survived the music industry. She survived addiction, abuse, and decades of silence. But in the end, it was the system—again—that failed her.
The documentary, Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus, is now complete. Alongside it comes a posthumous album—her first and only—which will finally bring her unreleased music into the world. Not just the one iconic song, but the full picture. The sound of a woman who had everything to say and no platform to say it from—until now.
It’s a bittersweet legacy. Q didn’t get her flowers while she was alive. She didn’t get the glitzy comeback or the viral rediscovery arc. What she got was something quieter, more complicated. But now, her voice is being heard again—not through a horror movie, not through myth, but on her own terms.
And maybe that’s the real goodbye in Goodbye Horses—not a letting go of dreams, but of the limits placed on who gets to have them.
Q Lazzarus has passed on. But her voice, finally, is immortalised.
