ABSTRACT
The German composer Ralph Siegel, a significant contributor to the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) for many years, has taken on this challenge of translating a song's meanings into a pan-European language through musical/aural and visual codes meant to be understood by audiences all over Europe. This chapter draws a closer look at Ralph Siegel's strategies for composing his Eurovision contributions over the past three decades. Since Siegel's songs work on more levels of meaning than exclusively musical ones, it considers how meaning can be conveyed through a synthesis of musical/aural, textual, and visual elements closely tied to contemporary musical tastes and the prevailing zeitgeist. Siegel seems to be one of the first Schlager composers to understand the importance of the visual element in a contest disseminated via television. Siegel's "magic formula" for success could be a useful model for understanding his remarkably long-lasting success and popularity in German-speaking countries.
