Hayden Thorpe & Jon Hopkins: Goodbye Horses (Q Lazzarus Cover)

Hayden Thorpe Jon Hopkins Goodbye HorsesCelebrating the 25th anniversary of Q Lazzarus’ “Goodbye Horses” next month, Mon Amie Records will reissue the 1988 cut backed by this stirring new cover from Wild Beasts’ Hayden Thorpe and producer/musician Jon Hopkins. In addition to being a hit in its day, as well as when covered by Psyche in 1996, this song is perhaps most notorious for appearing in the Buffalo Bill cross-dressing scene in The Silence of the Lambs. In the film, director Jonathan Demme used the original’s pop-friendly palette to expose and complicate the thriller’s sociopathic protagonist, but Thorpe and Hopkins place its darkness more on the surface here, paring it down into a haunting piano ballad. The result is one of the best covers of the year so far. Hear it above.