Playlist: Gasoline Lollipops sift through brokenness

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Brokenness in this life is a ravenous wolf. It’ll all catch up to you sooner or later, and when it does, you may not make it out alive. Inside such ruin, Boulder’s Americana troupe Gasoline Lollipops – of Clay Rose (vocals, acoustic guitar), Donny Ambory (electric guitar), Brad Morse (bass) and Kevin Matthews (drums) – run their fingers through the ash of life and its jagged contents. “We were trying to diminish the hurt that was given us at birth,” Rose laments in the opening stanza of “Broken,” their plaintive and smokey new song.

“Why are we so broken? Why are we so hollow?” he further seeks the answers. His words are solemn prayers that run the blood cold, yet the poetic mechanics might save him yet. “Leonard Cohen is the reason I write. When I was a suicidal teenager, he taught me how to turn suffering into beauty. He saved my life. I named my son after him,” he tells B-Sides & Badlands over email – noting “The Stranger Song” as especially influential (kicking off the playlist).

Out of such suffocating blackness, true beauty and art can be culled, sculpted and applied for greater understanding of life and happiness.

Below, the band compiles a lineup arranged around various kinds and stages of brokenness.

“How to Disappear Completely” [by Radiohead] gives me the same feeling I had when I wrote “Broken” – alien and alone.

“Where Will I Be” [by Emmylou Harris] influenced the drum beat on “Broken”. In general, we were trying to produce the track like Daniel Lanois would have.

“Wave of Mutilation” [by Pixies] is the embodiment of my teenage angst. So is “Broken.”

Chuck Plotkin and Bruce Springsteen produced “Youngstown,” but I feel like it has the same swimming effect of a Daniel Lanois production.

I discovered Tim Buckley at the same time I found Leonard Cohen. His vibe is deep and unmistakable. He takes me to the same ether that birthed “Broken.”

“Ultralight Beam” – I love this track from Kanye. I think his mad genius and faith really shine through here. I don’t share the same faith as he does, but the fact that I can relate and be moved by this track despite that fact is a testament to his artistry. It’s inspiring, that’s all.

“Brothers in Arms” [by Dire Straits] shares the same sentiment as “Broken,” it’s a love letter to brothers lost.

While “Goodbye” [Steve Earle] was written for an ex-lover, it can translate to any lost relationship. I feel it shares the same quality of guilty bewilderment as “Broken.”

“Greenland” is one of many tracks by Emancipator that soothes my soul and helps me to sleep at night when the fear and regret of daily life threaten to keep me awake forever.

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