Q Lazzarus documentary & retrospective album in the works

Q Lazzarus, aka singer and songwriter Diane Luckey, died on July 19, but the sad news only broke today. It weirdly seems fitting for an artist we know so little about and whose enigmatic cult status has continued to grow. Q Lazzarus only released one single, “Goodbye Horses,” but it has had a long life, first used in Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob but then more famously in Silence of the Lambs. (Even if you don’t know the song, you know the scene.) Demme was her most public champion, using her music in Something Wild and having her perform in 1993’s Oscar-winning Philadelphia, but she dropped off the map in the early ’90s and very little is known about her, given how little music was released, the pre-internet era of it all, and her private nature.

Fans will soon be able to know and hear lots more about Diane and Q Lazzarus. As the obituary on NJ’s Jackson Funeral Home notes, “At the time of her death, Diane was finishing work on a feature documentary about her life and music with filmmaker and friend, Eva Aridjis.  The film will be released in 2023, along with an album of songs spanning her entire musical career.”

As the obituary also notes, Diane “spent several years in London where she fronted the rock and roll band Q Lazzarus where she wrote dozens of songs and toured the United Kingdom.  She also performed at and hosted many parties at large clubs and arenas in London and collaborated with her friend Danny Z on house music tracks when back in the United States.” So there is a potential wealth of demos and recordings — and hopefully rare live footage — that we’ll get to hear and see. For those who don’t mind the curtain being pulled back a little, that is.

The documentary is titled Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus. No release date has been set. Stay tuned.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKFaGDrOfrI