"Lazzarus was repeatedly turned away by record companies, who insisted they could not market her because of her image which featured a
dreadlocks hairstyle. After picking up filmmaker
Jonathan Demme in her taxi during a blizzard and asking him if he was in the music business, she played him her demo tape, to which he replied, "Oh my God, what is this and who are you?" Her song "Candle Goes Away" was then included in Demme's 1986 film
Something Wild. In the late 1980s, she moved to
London to form an
Aerosmith-style
rock band and stayed there for five years.
[3][5]
In 1988, Lazzarus's signature song, "
Goodbye Horses", written and produced by Garvey, was released.
[5] That same year, the song was included in Demme's film
Married to the Mob. It later became a
cult hit following its inclusion in a scene from Demme's 1991 film
The Silence of the Lambs featuring the film's antagonist, serial killer
Buffalo Bill.
[6] She then appeared in Demme's next film, 1993's
Philadelphia, in which she performed a cover of the
Talking Heads song "
Heaven".
[7][8]
In 1996, Q Lazzarus disappeared from the public eye.
[9] As of 2015, she had been working as a bus driver in
Staten Island, and filed a lawsuit against a
Hasidic bus company for not hiring female bus drivers.
[3]
Q Lazzarus died on July 19, 2022 from an undisclosed illness.
[1"