She is best known for her 1988 song "Goodbye Horses", which became a cult classic after being prominently featured in a scene from Jonathan Demme's 1991 film The Silence of the Lambs.

She graduated from Neptune High School and, inspired by a production of Bubbling Brown Sugar on Broadway, moved to New York City at age 18 to pursue a music career.

The band consisted of Lazzarus, songwriter William Garvey, backup singer Gloriana Galicia and Janice Bernstein.

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?"

[10][11] In August 2019, filmmaker Eva Aridjis met her after getting picked up in her car service in New York City, and the two soon began working on a documentary about her life, Goodbye Horses: The Many Lives of Q Lazzarus.