Jame Gumb had excellent taste in music.

August 11, 2018 11:54 AM

Q Lazzarus scored a minor hit in 1990, when Jonathan Demme used her song “Goodbye Horses” in a pivotal scene in Silence of the Lambs. The singer seemed to disappear from the face of the earth in the mid-1990s. When Quitters drummer Kelsey Zimmerman put out a call on Twitter for the singer, she got a surprising response.
posted by pxe2000 (22 comments total)

I never thought this song would transcend its association in the movie. Neat little story!
posted by rhizome at 12:07 PM on August 11, 2018

I find myself wishing that Zimmerman had handled this with a bit more sensitivity to the woman's privacy (or maybe I simply missed the part where she said "go ahead and draw the whole internet's attention to the quiet life I have been living by choice.")
posted by Nerd of the North at 12:07 PM on August 11, 2018 [32 favorites]

If you've never heard this one you should.
posted by atoxyl at 12:09 PM on August 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

A haunting...no: a permanent song. But, yeah, as NotN suggests, this was not the denouement I'd hoped for.
posted by adamgreenfield at 1:04 PM on August 11, 2018

It's funny how human beings feel about people who have done creative work and then stopped, as if it was personal that they quit and necessarily a sad thing. Sometimes it isn't.
posted by Peach at 1:11 PM on August 11, 2018 [13 favorites]

This is honestly the first time I've listened to "Goodbye Horses" all the way through. I also like the origin story, where Q played the song to Jonathan Demme in her taxi, and he ended up using her music in several of his movies, including her cover of the Talking Heads' "Heaven" in Philadelphia.
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:07 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

whoa, what an awesome, weird little music video!
posted by mannequito at 2:24 PM on August 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

I find myself wishing that Zimmerman had handled this with a bit more sensitivity to the woman's privacy (or maybe I simply missed the part where she said "go ahead and draw the whole internet's attention to the quiet life I have been living by choice.")


I felt that, too, but if it makes you feel... well probably not better overall but slightly better about what Zimmerman put out - apparently Reddit, in its infinite enthusiasm for this sort of thing, already independently dug up her current full name. So Zimmerman mostly just ends up confirming that she's alive, which she apparently did want someone to know.
posted by atoxyl at 2:55 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

I find myself wishing that Zimmerman had handled this with a bit more sensitivity to the woman's privacy (or maybe I simply missed the part where she said "go ahead and draw the whole internet's attention to the quiet life I have been living by choice.")

Well, she seems to be OK with it, if you go to the comments in the Facebook post where Zimmerman posted screenshots of the SMS conversation, including this.
posted by beagle at 2:56 PM on August 11, 2018 [5 favorites]

I love the idea that someone like this would be so specifically famous for one particular thing she did nearly 30 years ago. And then show up in an awkward way on Twitter briefly, then disappear again because no really, she's fine in her life without the fame.

FWIW Wikipedia has a bio with more info than I've seen before. Including a 1993 movie appearance covering Heaven for Philadelphia.
posted by Nelson at 4:12 PM on August 11, 2018

God I love this song. Great story!
posted by oceanjesse at 4:16 PM on August 11, 2018

It kind of stinks that "Goodbye Horses" is such a good song, because it's pretty much impossible to listen to in public. That must be a strange feeling, to be an artist who recorded a song like that.

A few years ago, I lived in an old building with a really creepy basement. I had some people over for a housewarming party, and when I took them on a tour, I set it up to play "Goodbye Horses" when we went down the basement stairs.
posted by kevinbelt at 4:36 PM on August 11, 2018 [9 favorites]

goodbye horses is one og my favourite songs, this is great
unrelatedly i've been avoiding facebook for two weeks and this opened in the app and threw off my 40 unread/unchecked notifications streak
posted by LeviQayin at 4:38 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

it's pretty much impossible to listen to in public

Let me tell ya, listening to it by yourself ain't no great shakes neither.
posted by rhizome at 4:42 PM on August 11, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cool update. Yeah I'm one of those who's googled her a bit. (Previously)

I hate that her songs didn't make it onto the soundtrack album for either movie "Silence of the Lambs" or "Philadelphia".

Just bad luck, on Silence of the Lambs. It was Howard Shore's score.

And tough competition from a lot of star power on "Philadelphia".

Glad she's alive.
posted by surplus at 6:40 PM on August 11, 2018

My homebase bar has this song on the jukebox at least five times a night on any given night, I think because one of the bartenders really likes it, so I’ve actually shed my murder association with it. Hopefully that doesn’t become problematic in some other context.
posted by invitapriore at 10:12 PM on August 11, 2018 [3 favorites]

Huh. Honestly I never paid that much attention to the music in that scene. I've seen SotL at least a dozen times, but if I heard this in public I'd not have made the connection.

I did enjoy the reaction years ago, though, when I pointed out to my then-SO that Capt. Stottlemeyer on "Monk" was Buffalo Bill in SotL. Not sure she ever watched that show quite the same way again.
posted by jzb at 4:56 AM on August 12, 2018 [2 favorites]

Goodbye Horses was on the soundtrack album for Married to the Mob, another Demme flick, where it wasn't used creepily. I loved the song and tried to track down more by Lazarus without finding anything other than a note in some magazine that the song was "by a cabbie." The pre-internet days were tough.

The Silence of the Lambs performance ruined it for me, so I'm still not happy about that particular choice.
posted by mark k at 8:41 AM on August 12, 2018

On mefi music!
posted by kenko at 6:40 PM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

MetFilter: I’ve actually shed my murder association with it.
posted by Western Infidels at 8:14 PM on August 12, 2018 [1 favorite]

The surprising response is that I have to join Facebook?
posted by bongo_x at 1:32 AM on August 13, 2018

Goodbye Horses also gets a nod on the Skate 3 video game soundtrack. A nice chilltrack while you're shredding.
posted by Salient at 12:42 PM on August 13, 2018