Anthony Ruptak saved himself by deciding to help save others.

The longtime local singer-songwriter had hit bottom in 2019. The sloppy drinking. The unresolved childhood trauma. Suicidal thoughts. His kidneys, he figures, were only a couple of months from failing. This could go one of two ways, he reckoned: Clean up, marry the love of his life and enjoy a happiness that was both right in front of him and world away.

Or, he could throw it all away.

“My fiancé (now wife) told me she was nervous about our upcoming wedding, and if I was going to even remember it,” Ruptak said. “I remember just physically and mentally feeling like absolute death all the time.”

Then came COVID and seven months of isolation. Ruptak needed somewhere to put his pernicious anxiety, and training to become an emergency medical technician became his lifeline.

“I’ve always really been fascinated by medicine, but I never really thought I had the smarts to pursue it,” he said. With the arts scene fully shut down, he enrolled in a two-year paramedic training program he will complete next month. That not only set him on a new path toward his own health – a new world of songwriting opened up to him as well. One that, for the first time, was not fueled by alcohol and rage.

“I was transporting a woman with Stage 4 cancer to a hospice, and she was scheduled to die within the week,” Ruptak said. “She talked to me about how she had spent her whole life in the church, doing everything to ensure a place in Heaven. And now that she was on the precipice, she no longer cared to meet God.”

The woman asked Ruptak and his crew to let her lie outside on her stretcher for a while before being brought into the hospice so that she could enjoy the feeling of rain one last time.

He tells her story in his devastating new song, “Grace.”

‘Faith, well it’s a hell of a drug.

You need a little more every time unless you give it up

And face the music on your own.

Or fit yourself into a life where you never felt you belonged.’

– From ‘Grace,’ by Anthony Ruptak

“I think I’m trying to convey that faith is a powerful placebo that we self-administer when we need it,” Ruptak said. “It’s a throughline in our humanity, from the highest end of the human food chain to those who are just barely surviving. As our tolerance to the drug rises, its effects are blunted, and we are left feeling how we really feel.”

In his training, Ruptak has seen every imaginable type of person from every imaginable walk of life. But he’s found that being an addict himself has helped him to make an immediate connection with someone in a life-or-death crisis.

“If I’m talking to somebody who’s suicidal, or in withdrawal, or relapsing, I can watch a softness come over them when I tell them, ‘Hey, I am a recovering alcoholic, and I understand what you’re going through, to a point,” Ruptak said. “I think a lot of people get passed around the medical system as just faceless numbers, and they get brushed off a lot of the time. It’s a really powerful feeling just to be talked to like a human being instead of someone just saying, ‘What did you take?’ I get to really exercise some empathy with people.”

And that can be great fodder for songwriting, he added, because he can get dangerously close to the human condition on a day-to-day basis.

“I get a front-row seat to people’s worst day, all the time,” said Ruptak, who has a new song called “Trauma Naked” about a homeless woman who was being swept out of a Denver encampment while bleeding out from a spontaneous miscarriage. “There are really intense stories around us everywhere, all the time,” he said, “but usually we tend to just avoid looking at them.”

Ruptak has been building a faithful following on the Denver music scene and beyond for a dozen years. He’s part of a remarkable and wide-ranging group of local singer-songwriters who are making an impact across a wide variety of genres at the moment. Perhaps you’ve heard of Nathaniel Rateliff, Gregory Alan Isakov, Esme Patterson, Ian Cooke and Neyla Pekarek – just a few of the Coloradans who have earned international attention over the past few years. But there are many more rising to differing degrees of name recognition, helping to make this something of a golden age of local songwriting.

Writers like Ruptak, Nina de Freitas, Kayla Marque is, Julie Davis of the band Bluebook, Michelle Rocqet of Milk Blossoms, Erin Roberts of Porlolo and Clay Rose of the Gasoline Lollipops, who writes searing country songs with his mamma. (She wrote “Last Thing I Needed” for Willie Nelson.) Then there are Haiti-born rapper Schama Noel, self-described Queer stripper N3ptune and the wildly talented trumpeter Wes Watkins, who left Rateliff’s Night Sweats band back in 2016.

Many of them will be showcased at next week’s 23rd annual Underground Music Showcase, more colloquially known as The UMS. That’s three days of live music by 216 local and national bands in 17 venues spread over nine blocks of Broadway from Sixth Avenue south to Alameda Avenue.

Alisha Sweeney, host and local music director at radio station Indie 102.3, has noticed the trend, and she thinks she knows why we’re seeing a proliferation of poetic, political, personal and powerful lyrics and lyricists.

“I think we’re starting to see a lot of music come out now that was written alone during the pandemic,” she said. The plague that turned frontmen into soloists. She cites Travis McNamara of the Denver-based bluegrass band Trout Steak Revival. “When the pandemic happened, band members just couldn’t be together, and Travis was going through his own emotional issues at home alone – so he just leaned into making a solo album,” Sweeney said. That was “Moon Calendar,” released in March. McNamara, by interest and necessity, played every instrument on the record.

“We’re seeing a lot of these albums all coming out of the pandemic that are evoking a lot of different emotions,” Sweeney said. “But even when a song feels happy, there tends to be an undercurrent of sadness – because how can there not be sadness coming out of the last couple of years of music?” She says that’s what Denver’s esteemed Julie Davis does best. “She is the queen of writing a really catchy pop song, but making it sad,” she said. “And I love that.”

People look for different things when seeking out the perfect lyric. To many songwriting aficionados, the “greatest” conversation can’t start much better than with Leonard Cohen. One of hundreds of possible examples might be:

“Like a bird on the wire.

Like a drunk in a midnight choir.

I have tried in my way to be free.”

To Sweeney, lots of things go into the perfect lyric: The rhythm, the flow, the catchy hooks. “I think a great song lyric is a combination of both an emotional depth while also evoking a powerful feeling or visual,” she said. But in the end, it comes down to two things: “It’s the storytelling, and it’s the voice that draw me in.”

What follows are short capsule introductions to five rising or long-arrived local singer-songwriters you can see for yourself at next week’s UMS, with an inside look at a chosen killer lyric penned by each artist.

This curated Spotify sampler playlist features Denver-based artists scheduled to play at next weekend’s Underground Music Showcase.

FIVE FEATURED DENVER SONGWRITERS

“To my lungs I succumb,

savoring the pull —

darkness spun like wool,

and upon my tongue,

the words for what you’ve done,

the holy rolling thrill.”

JULIE DAVIS

Julie Davis is a singer, songwriter, upright bass player and installation artist known for her boundary-pushing arrangements and spare, haunting vocals that often reference myths, fairy tales and poetry. She has collaborated with the Colorado Symphony and contributed vocals and bass to projects by many Denver musicians including Nathaniel Rateliff, Gregory Alan Isakov and Ian Cooke.

• Affiliated Band: Bluebook

• Song title: “My Good Ear”

• Appears on: “Optimistic Voices”

• What is the song about? “It’s about an incapacitating ear infection I had in early 2020. My husband (Joseph Pope III of Nathaniel Rateliff and he Night Sweats), who is a full-time touring musician, returned home from a tour in the midst of my illness and cared for me and our young son. The song is simultaneously about the effect that my husband’s touring life has had on our relationship and my own perspective about my music career, as I was stuck at home caring for our child on our own while he was on the road. The ear infection left me with pulsatile tinnitus in my left ear, which I still have, and allows me to sometimes hear my own heartbeat. The song resolves with the line, ‘In the sound I am found, I am found,’ referring to the idea of my salvation from the pain of those years being in the sound of my own heartbeat and that a salvation waits in making my own music.”

• Killer lyric explained: “This lyric begins the song and introduces the idea of being in a disorienting fever state through the ear infection, lying in the dark and relying on the sound of my breathing as a steadying force through the pain. The darkness of my room was my only solace as I slept through the fever. I am talking to my husband here, whose experience on the road has sometimes been very isolating to me and created a disconnect between us. He is the “holy roller,” which refers to a lyric from one of his own songs, and in my illness, I often found myself wishing things had turned out differently between us — we had always intended to be on the road together, and I think “the words for what you’ve done” refers to his abandonment of that plan in order to pursue a life on the road without me.”

• Video link to this song: youtube.com

• Thoughts on the perfect song lyric: “I am drawn to imagistic lyrics that evoke a certain feeling and connect with each listener differently, depending on their personal context.”

• One favorite songwriter? Thom Yorke of Radiohead

• Your set at this year’s UMS: 9 p.m. Sunday, July 30, at UMS House

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”Why are we so smart, why are we lunatics?

Why are we so dark, why are we luminous?

Why are we so sharp, why are we smooth as skin?

Where are the Mozarts? Where are the Luther Kings? Where are the Luther Kings? Where are the Luther Kings?”

SCHAMA NOEL

Denver-based hip-hop artist Schama Noel was born in Haiti and immigrated to Florida as a baby. He told Westword he began writing lyrics in sixth grade, influenced by T.I., Ludacris and OutKast. He broke out with his viral Twitter account RapLike by writing verses in the style of Nicki Minaj, Jay-Z and other popular artists. He moved to Denver in 2019 and has now released six full-length albums, most recently “Two Can Play That Game.”

• Song title: “Suitcase”

• Appears on: “Eternal Feels”

• What is the song about? “The song is about the flaws of humanity while also acknowledging the infinite potential we all have.”

• Killer lyric explained: “I chose Mozart and Martin Luther King for my song because one represents creativity and human expression while the other helped fight for my right to even be able to express myself.”

• Audio link to this song: songwhip.com

• Thoughts on the perfect song lyric: “I want to hear the artist’s unique perspective and story.”

• One favorite songwriter? Andre 3000

• Your set at this year’s UMS: 3:20-4:05 p.m. Sunday, July 30, at the Showcase Stage

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“But when your heart of gold

Feels heavy don’t regret

The times when you eased the burdens

Off someone else’s back.”

NINA DE FREITAS

Nina de Freitas’ voice “is as dark as the sea and smooth as good espresso,” as described by 303 Magazine’s Alex Kramer. De Freitas, originally from Colorado Springs, was the former frontwoman and songwriter for Nina & the Hold Tight and has been playing at The UMS since a breakout set in 2018.

• Song title: “Fractures,” a single from 2021

• What is the song about? “A friend put it so well by saying that ‘Fractures’ is about being broken and whole at the very same time.”

• Killer lyric explained: “Kindness is always worth it even when it doesn’t feel like it is. Kindness is what keeps the Earth and all of us who live on it in balance.”

• Audio link to this song: ​​bandcamp.com

• Your thoughts on the perfect song lyric: “Uninhibited honesty mixed with meeting yourself where you are will (hopefully) lead others to meet themselves where they are.”

• One favorite songwriter? Fiona Apple

• Your sets at this year’s UMS: Full band set at HQ at 6 p.m. Friday. Solo set at 6 p.m. Saturday at Denver Distillery

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“It’s easier to hold onto the past

To look into what’s happened

As something that will last.

Is starting over something grand?

Don’t think I’ll ever start to understand that there’s

One less room in this house

One less bed, and one less mouth.”

MICHELLE ROCQET

Michelle Rocqet, a founding member of the experimental pop band The Milk Blossoms, has been called innovative, gut-wrenching and “an amalgam of outsider pop.” She released her debut single “Interview” in 2020 and has since performed all over the world as a vocalist, beatboxer and musician.

• Affiliated Bands: The Milk Blossoms, Wheelchair Sports Camp

• Song title: “One Less Room”

• Appears on: The sing is unreleased. It’s from her developing stage musical called “Youngmee”

• What is the song about? “In grief, the simplest realizations are oftentimes the most painful. How silence acts as an antagonist to us moving on.”

• Killer lyric explained: “It’s reflecting on nostalgia as a disorder. How we comfort ourselves by reliving something that has already happened as a way to synthesize consistency and emotional safety.”

• Thoughts on the perfect song lyric: “I’ve been thinking more about song form lately, and I think it’s worth investigating. A director recently asked me: ‘How does the structure of something continue to release the meaning of it?’ So, I’ll pass this question onto others to consider.”

• One favorite songwriter? Just one? Babyface.

• Your set at this year’s UMS: 11 p.m. Friday at UMS House

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“Believe in something, even if it’s stupid.

Might be the reason why we’re all still clenching fists.”

ANTHONY RUPTAK

The veteran Arvada musician Ruptak writes and performs his original work with a simple mission: to explore the effects of the human condition. His music ranges from vulnerable acoustic performances to raucous and maximalist multi-instrumental experiences, with his intricate lyrics always at the forefront.

• Song title: “Real Man”

• Appears on: “A Place That Never Changes”

• What is the song about? “‘Real Man’ is an attempt to address my own pre-programed toxic masculinity by pointing to personal life events that have defined my trajectory, mostly events from childhood-adolescence that made me think, ‘Oh yeah, this is what being a man is about.’ It’s about being confidently incorrect and looking like an idiot.”

• Killer lyric explained: “It meant something different to me when I wrote it than it does now. I wrote this at the height of the Trump presidency and I was harboring a lot of anger, letting outrage and things beyond my control dictate my happiness and mental health. Now, as I’ve gotten older, gotten sober and shifted careers into emergency medical services, it more means ‘believe in myself, believe in us – even if we’re doomed.’”

• Video link to this song: youtube.com

• Thoughts on the perfect song lyric: “Lyrics that hit hardest for me are usually very human. They are not super poetic. They draw on relative humanity.”

• One favorite songwriter? “Unfair, but Aimee Mann if I can only choose one.”

• Your sets at this year’s UMS: 7 p.m. Friday at Denver Distillery (solo set); 1:15 p.m. Saturday at the Underground Stage (full band)

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‘I reside where the sun don’t shine.

Birthed outta the legs of pain, now I wanna stretch mine.

I’m the shadow; that’s what my name is.’

N3PTUNE

Heavily influenced by his upbringing in the Baptist Church, N3ptune is a Denver-based, genre-bending multi-hyphenate who, alongside co-producer Rusty Steve, merges the essence of gospel, blues and soul into an amalgamation of original pop music.

• Affiliated band: N3ptune + Rusty Steve

• Song title: “Shadow”

• Appears on: Streaming devices

• What is the song about? “The integration of the shadow self. It explores the full embrace of one’s shadow, and dancing in that darkness rather than running from it.”

• Killer lyric explained: “This lyric speaks to the repression of our dark sides. It’s my dark side saying it wants its turn to walk around and paint the town red.”

• Video link to this song: youtu.be/07OZoaJBkdE

• Thoughts on the perfect song lyric: “My songwriting advice would be to not focus on trying to sound cool. Let the ideas flow naturally. Live and experience life and write about the things you’re scared to write about – and you’ll make the best music.”

• One favorite songwriter? “This is a set-up making me only pick one! But I’m going with Lady Gaga, because her music and lyrics were there when no one else was.”

• Your set at this year’s UMS: N3ptune is the winner of The UMS’ inaugural Impact Artist award, which means he will be headlining on the Showcase Stage at 5:30 p.m. Saturday. N3ptune was selected “not only because his music captivates audiences, but his powerful focus on mental wellness, BIPOC and queer advocacy, commitment to healthy masculinity and sober curiosity,” the UMS said in a statement.