Lawrence Rothman Closes an Americana Trilogy and Opens With Bowie's Question

Lawrence Rothman opens their new album, "Here Lives Love/Sawdust to Stardust," with a song called "The Meaning" — and a question inherited from David Bowie. The album completes a trilogy of Americana-rooted records, following 2021's "Good Morning, America" and 2024's "The Plow That Broke the Plains," that Rothman says tells the story of their adult life in music.

Speaking with Variety during AmericanaFest in Nashville, Rothman traced the album's central question to a conversation with Bowie early in their solo career. Rothman, then freshly out of the band Living Things — which they had fronted with their brothers for 13 years — played Bowie a new song, "Montauk Fling." Bowie asked about the chorus: "But what's the meaning of it? You need to be more direct." Rothman rewrote the chorus on the spot and kept the lesson.

"I wrote that down in my journal at the time: 'David Bowie says, "What's the meaning of all of this?"'" Rothman said. That journal entry led to the song "Glory" on "Good Morning, America," and now to "The Meaning."

Why a trilogy?

Rothman modeled the three-album arc on Henry Miller's "Sexus, Plexus and Nexus" trilogy, which the singer calls a lifelong psychic influence. The trilogy begins with "Thrash the West" on the 2021 record and ends with "Sawdust to Stardust," which also supplies the new album's title. Rothman hopes listeners will one day sit with the full sequence as a single, filmic autobiography.

The records share collaborators. Katie Pruitt appears on the first and last albums, Amanda Shires on all three, and Jason Isbell on the final two. Rothman and Isbell wrote "Nothing Like Shakespeare" — which, like "Poster Child," tells Rothman's origin story — in the same three-hour session that produced "Poster Child." The lyric "I took the bus, she took the house" recounts, literally, how Rothman left a first love in Los Angeles.

The trilogy also marked Rothman's move away from an earlier era of L.A. rock personae — nine different alters, prosthetics and all, performed over seven years — toward direct, autobiographical songwriting anchored in Nashville after Lucinda Williams sang on "Decent Man" and drew them to the city.

What about the production career?

Alongside the new album, Rothman has built a busy producing side: Amanda Shires' 2025 confessional album "Nobody's Girl" (and "Take It Like a Man" before it), Maggie Rose's "Half Moon," and Tift Merritt's comeback, "Sugar." Rothman produces roughly one record a month.

"I stand in the recording room, not the control room, when I'm producing," Rothman said. "If a singer's singing, I'm right next to them. Sometimes I'll take my shirt off and dance."

Rothman frames their affinity for Americana in expansive terms. "I think it's the most forward-thinking music of any genre right now," they said, arguing the category now welcomes R&B, rock, folk and even jazz — with one condition: "It's the human touch music."

The new album features guest vocals from Shires, Jillian Jacqueline, Katie Pruitt and Sarah Klang, who duets on "A Fire Test."

Who is "Worn Out Woman" about?

The song is a portrait of Rothman's wife, director Floria Sigismondi — writer-director of "The Runaways" and a filmmaker of some 35 years, who has worked with artists from Bowie to Rihanna. Rothman began it at the piano while Sigismondi's mother was dying and Hollywood's misogyny was, in Rothman's words, hitting her hard. Songwriter Amy Wadge, co-author of Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud," helped finish it after hearing the draft and saying, "I'm gonna cry. That's me."

Sigismondi initially balked at the song. "I don't want that to become my reality, (that) I'm worn out," Rothman recalled her saying. Rothman's answer: "We're just doing the primal scream."

Where do the proceeds go?

Rothman is donating a portion of the album's proceeds to the Trevor Project, with full fees from "The Meaning" — including any future sync placement — going to the organization. The song was originally written with Madi Diaz for a movie that got shelved.

Rothman, who grew up in Missouri and was bullied daily for their androgynous appearance, said the song's message for LGBTQ youth mirrors their own survival: "I went through it, and I'm still here."

The next album, Rothman says, may lean toward jazz — and possibly toward happiness. "Maybe I'll have my Bobby McFerrin moment," they said.