Teanga Teanga Reinvents “Around The World” While Honoring Its Legacy

Reinterpreting a song as recognizable as “Around the World” means confronting a melody that has already become part of the collective memory. Teanga Teanga accepts that challenge and, rather than following the orchestral elegance of Nat King Cole’s version, transforms the 1956 classic into a piece of electronic art-pop that preserves the romantic character of the original composition while placing it in a more intimate and contemporary setting.

Teanga Teanga is the collaborative project of New York artist Pamela Sue Mann and Dublin-based composer and producer Paul Murphy, also known as pxmurphy.

The idea of working on “Around The World” emerged from experimental sessions and the exchange of files between the two artists.

“If we both buzz off it, we start digging in and seeing what comes out,” Murphy explains and Mann adds, “If you’re going to do a cover, you’ve got to have something soulful—depth, honesty, empathy. Otherwise, you’re just doing a cover.”

Mann has worked with artists including Suzanne Vega, Donna Lewis, and Gerry Leonard, while Laurie Anderson has described her work as “a masterpiece.” Murphy, meanwhile, has built a career creating music for television, advertising, theater, and film, in addition to being a member of the band Electric Penguins.

At first, it is difficult to recognize which song is playing because this new version moves away from the musical structure commonly associated with it. Soft tones, cinematic synths, spectral textures, whisper-like vocals, and string arrangements create an ethereal and spacious atmosphere.

There are traces of 1950s cinema, the melodic sincerity of 1970s pop, ambient electronica, and a theatrical sensibility connected to the avant-garde.

Pamela Sue Mann’s performance becomes one of the track’s main distinguishing elements. Her vocal approach is more intimate, enigmatic, and vulnerable, as though the words were emerging from a memory that still carries its emotional weight. The song also features spoken passages that give it a distinctly different narrative dimension.

Mann has explained that a cover needs depth, honesty, and empathy to justify its existence. That idea defines the result of “Around The World.” Teanga Teanga does not alter the song simply to adapt it to an electronic language, but to give it a new emotional status.

Teanga Teanga holds on to the essence that persists even after the song has been dismantled and rebuilt from a completely different perspective. This “Around The World” honors the history of the composition without becoming trapped in it.

TEANGA TEANGA ON INSTAGRAM.