Twenty-Seven People Who Did Not Exist (Juan Pujol García)

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
He walked into
the British embassy
and offered to spy
and they said no

He walked into
the German embassy
and offered to spy
and they said yes

So he became
a German spy
who was actually
a man
who wanted
to destroy Germany
and the British
had not yet
noticed

He began inventing
agents

[Chorus]
Twenty-seven people
who did not exist

Each one had a name
a location
a job
a reason
for knowing
what they claimed
to know

A Welsh nationalist
in Swansea
A Portuguese sailor
in Liverpool
A Venezuelan student
in Glasgow

Each one wrote reports
to the German
high command
and each report
was slightly wrong
in a direction
that pointed
away from
where the invasion
would actually come

And his brain
held all twenty-seven
without contamination —
twenty-seven backstories
twenty-seven writing styles
twenty-seven sets
of plausible knowledge
rotating
in the prefrontal cortex
like plates
on twenty-seven sticks
and not one
fell

[Verse 2]
On the day
of the invasion
the twenty-seven agents
confirmed:
Calais

The German high command
kept their reserves
at Calais
for seven weeks
waiting for the invasion
the twenty-seven
had promised

The invasion
came at Normandy
where none of them
were looking

[Final Chorus]
He received
an Iron Cross
from Germany
for his service
to the Reich

He received
a medal
from Britain
for his service
to the Allies

Both medals
were real
The man
they were awarded to
was real
The twenty-seven people
who earned them
were not

One brain
Twenty-seven fictions
A war
that turned
on the consistency
of characters
who did not exist
telling a story
that was not true
to an audience
that could not
afford
to disbelieve it

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