Tourism and Heterotopia in Falco’s Songs

The purpose of this chapter is to analyse the motif of tourism, as a form of exploring foreign places, in the work of Austrian singer and song writer Falco. In order to do so, I will refer to two concepts: ‘tourism’ and ‘heterotopia’, both used in the discourse on popular music. ‘Music and tourism’ covers such phenomena as promoting specific locations through the lyrics and music of the songs and pilgrimages to sites related to famous musicians such as Memphis, the site of memory of Elvis Presley or music festivals (Gibson and Connell 2005). However, not much is written about musicians engaging with the discourse on tourism, adopting the role of critical travellers which, I will argue in due course, is the case with Falco.