ON THE RISE
Kelsey Dodd, for most of her 17 years, has wanted to begin a music career, and her debut, for Christmas 2024, is Christmas music, her EP Forever Evergreen.
Its five songs, one original and four classics that she has made her own, feature her beautiful voice—rich, strong and expressive—which carries the lyrics up and down the scales and into the Christmas heart.
The title track, “Forever Evergreen” is a song of her Christmas memories and feelings told through the story of a family Christmas gathering, written by Kelsey and Cassandra Kubinski.
“A big portion of this project was finding ways to make such classic songs sound new again and put a unique twist on it,” she said. “And we’ve done that through multiple instruments. We’ve done that through some stylistic choices. We’ve made some songs jazzy. We’ve kept some songs traditional. We’ve done that through having everything done live.”
The four classics are “The Christmas Song” from 1945, first and most famously recorded by Nat King Cole in 1946; “Let It Snow,” also from 1945, which became a Christmas hit for Vaughan Monroe that year and again in 1950 for Frank Sinatra; “Home for Christmas,” a top-10 song for Bing Crosby in 1943, recorded as a tribute to American soldiers overseas; and “Oh Holy Night,” a popular Christmas carol since it was written in France in the 1840s.
“I’ve always wanted to put out some of my own music, some of my originals, since I’m a songwriter, and doing that through Forever Evergreen has been a beautiful process,” she said.
“And it’s always been a big goal of mine to put out some Christmas music, just because Christmas has also always held a really special place in my heart.”
Kelsey has not only given them her voice, she and her team of producers, have given them touches of jazz, “The Nutcracker” and “Jingle Bells,” among others.
All have been performed by many artists, old and new, famous and not. Many of them are inspirations for Kelsey, who cites especially Ella Fitzgerald, Barbra Streisand, Adele and Kelly Clarkson.
“My identification as an artist has been shaped by all of those,” she said. “I’m truly inspired and I take my own stylistic liberties from seeing the greats that have also found success in Christmas music.”
Kelsey, finishing high school, has been developing her voice since she was 7, “training in all styles, from classical to musical theater, to pop, to jazz.”
“I’ve been knee deep in every style of music, and it’s shaped me into the artist I am. So, having the ability to bring such a variety of styles into one project has made it feel complete. It’s made it feel like my own.”
She has been singing publicly for almost as long, especially at the Saratoga Springs Senior Center, where, she said, she got her strong connection to Christmas and music. She has also been involved in musical theater.
“And I started collaborating with people around my own community around Christmas time. Being able to put out Christmas music and using this Christmas project to put my original work into the public eye for the first time, has been a dream come true.”
“Forever Evergreen,” the title track, is very much a Christmas song as well as a coming-of-age song.
“I felt like it needed to reflect all of the values that I’ve been holding close to my heart throughout this whole time in my life—having this retrospective aspect where I’m looking back on the memories of my childhood. Then, in verse two, when I say, ‘the memories that I carry with me as I build my own world,’ it resonates with every aspect of my life currently, because I truly am just getting started and having this coming of age, having this …”
She stops here, searching for the right word, and a few seconds later finds it.
“Hopeful, that’s the word,” she said, “this hopeful quality about the track. It resonates with where I am in my position as an artist so far.”
Where she goes next is open. For now, that is college. In the spring, she will begin college majoring in musical theater, which she loves, but she also wants to continue writing and putting out music.
“Being young, emotions swing all over the place. It seems like one year I’m in one phase of my life, and the next I am in a completely new one, learning everything I possibly can.”
“I’m open to everything,” she said, “being, in my own opinion, such a versatile artist.”
Listening to her sing, the versatility is evident in the power of her vocals, high and low. Her voice goes a lot of different places over the five tracks of Forever Evergreen. It is obviously a voice that will go wherever she decides to take it, and she has the talent to take it wherever she wants.
Or, as she says, wherever her artistry “wants to lead me.”
“I’m going to continue performing, continue growing as an artist, continue writing, continue working with the team that I’ve been working with. There will be more music in the future just because of how deeply it is rooted in my identity.”
As she builds her own musical world, connect to Kelsey Dodd on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
ON THE RISE
As Belle & Sebastian share their buoyant 2026 Scotland World Cup anthem ‘It Only Takes One Lion’, frontman Stuart Murdoch has spoken to NME about capturing the feeling back home and his hopes for the team since childhood.
Released today (Tuesday June 2), the Scottish indie heroes’ bid for their nation’s tournament anthem was written after the team’s surprise 4-2 qualifying win against Denmark.
“I felt like we were watching history in the moment, like the hand of God from the old National Lottery adverts was pointing at us,” Murdoch told NME about that game-changing victory. “It was meant to be. Scotland aren’t a terrific team and Denmark are better, but it just felt that day that Scotland were destined to win. Three out of the four goals were things of beauty.”
Produced by and co-written with Pete Ferguson and premiered at the band’s recent London Royal Albert Hall show as part of the anniversary tour for their classic first two albums ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’, the soaring song is intrinsically Belle & Sebastian as it morphs from a hymn to a an orchestral disco jam as Murdoch sings of a nation’s hopes and his own boyhood dreams.
NME spoke to Murdoch from the band’s North American tour, where we found him in a graveyard in Texas. “I was just looking for a park because Austin is a pretty scary place downtown now, so I’ve ended up in the Texas Cemetery,” he shared via Zoom.
Was there anyone famous buried there?
“I was looking around and I found the founder of Austin City Limits, which is pretty cool as that’s where we’re playing tonight. I’m looking at one now and it just says, ‘Martin: he loved the law’. Then underneath it says, ‘Billie Louise: she loved the lawyer’.”
We joke that there’s the opening to a Belle & Sebastian song if there ever there was one. “It’s great! It’s given me inspiration.”
For now, read the rest of interview with Murdoch below as he tells us about Scotland’s chances, 30 years of hurt, if fans will be singing it at the top of their lungs in Canada, the US and Mexico this summer, and what’s next for the band.
NME: Hello Stuart. Here we are with ‘It Only Takes One Lion’ Who needs three?
Stuart Murdoch: “Who needs three? Good question. I wouldn’t know!”
What’s the mood been like in Scotland since you qualified?
“It’s funny. I’ve noticed this everywhere: with the World Cup there’s a mixture of cynicism and anticipation. When the actual tournament starts, everyone will get excited about it. Because of FIFA, the peace prize, the ticket prices, people seem quite down about it. I found that in Mexico. They were quite fed up with the general hype about it. I’m in the States just now and you shouldn’t believe all the hype: people are people. The States are just as ‘great’ as ever. We love coming here, we love the cities. The general sense of North American optimism will make for a good tournament.”
“With Scotland though, people will definitely be excited about it. You have to understand, it’s been 30 years since Scotland qualified so I think everybody and their dog has written a song for the team.”
How do you meet the challenge of penning a World Cup anthem, when there have been so many legendary bangers and absolutely shite duds?
“I never planned it. I woke up with a tune in my head and a feeling. That’s the way it should always be for songs. I couldn’t control myself and it was quite straight-forward. I wrote this initial bit about how I felt about the current World Cup team and the qualifying game. It was more introspective.
“When it starts off with, ‘The days are dark and long…’, it’s just my general feeling about football. I’ve been going to see my own team quite a lot recently. It’s my little anthem for how I feel about football and following Scotland for the last 50 years, just the ups and downs. It’s quite a heartfelt thing. When I was eight or nine, the Scottish team meant so much to me, it the thing I was most invested in. There’s a line in there about how I used to memorise the whole squad before ‘78 and 82.”
Tell us about lyric: “This is Scotland, where everyone knows you start with nothing… where you can join an army for peace”…
“My wife made the video for it and she said, ‘I’m not sure I like that line about everyone starting with nothing’. Our first game is against Haiti and they really have nothing. Their country is pretty poor and they’re going through hard times. It was almost a throwaway line and I’m not sure what I meant by it, but in a footballing sense every game starts with nothing. Even if it’s against Brazil, you’ve always got a chance!
“The army refers to The Tartan Army, which has really been quite a remarkable institution for the past 30 years. We changed from drunken buffoons that used to wreck things to this excellent supporting brigade.”
It’s not your standard football sing-along. Can you see it being sung in the terraces?
“I’m not sure, I didn’t cynically design it for that. Many people have said to me in the past, ‘None of your songs have a chorus, you need to write one’. ‘This is Scotland’ is a chorus! They things need to happen organically. I’m sure the fans will still be singing ‘Yes sir, I can boogie’ for years to come.”
What do you actually think of Scotland’s chances right now?
“With the last Euros, they maybe got stage fright or didn’t have that tournament experience. I think Andy Robertson [captain] will be telling them, ‘We really need to produce our best stuff’. If they do and we see them actually playing football, then I don’t really care about the results that much. I just want to see Scotland exceeding our expectations of them. That Denmark game was so crazy that everything after just feels like a bonus.”
If miracles do happen and Scotland make it to the final, how will you celebrate? A free gig in Glasgow?
“Of course, yes! Free everything. If we even got close, I think the whole country would shut down for a year and the GDP would drop. We’d go into a massive recession but no one would care.
“We were playing a gig in Mexico City and I told the crowd, ‘It’s you and us, Mexico and Scotland in the final’. Mexico have never really got close either. I told them it would be five goals a piece, even after everyone takes a penalty and we have to share the trophy. I would settle for that.”
You released two albums in quick succession with 2022’s ‘A Bit of Previous’, 2023’s ‘Late Developers’ and then your debut novel Nobody’s Empire in 2024. You’ve been busy! Is there any progress on new material?
“We went through a period where we recorded a lot and we said, ‘Let’s not record for a while and give ourselves a couple of cycles off’. We’re doing these 30th anniversary shows so we’re just going to lean on the back catalogue and cruise for a while. We’re doing a year on and a year off so everyone can focus on different things.
We’re not looking at new Belles stuff for a while. I’m meant to be developing Nobody’s Empire into a film, so that’s my next task. It’s a long way off from being made but I’m going to write the script for that.”
Scotland’s first World Cup tournament match is against Haiti on Sunday June 14, before they go on to play Morocco on Friday June 19 and Brazil on Wednesday June 24.
The band’s ‘Tigermilk’ and ‘If You’re Feeling Sinister’ anniversary tour continues throughout the summer, performing the iconic albums in full during across the UK, Europe, North America, Mexico, Australia, Singapore and Japan. Visit here for tickets and more information.
