| Michelle Murray and David Murray | The Juliet Letters | 2006 | Allmusic•Amazon |
| Steve Nieve | Costello: A Collection Of Unfaithful Music | 2015 | Mojo4music.com•Discogs |
| Steve Nieve | instrumental, performed live, 2020-03-19, The Daily Improvisation, France | 2020 | Facebook - 2:42 |
| Tom Norris | Tom Norris Sings The Juliet Letters | 2011 | Wikipedia•soundcloud.com |
| Anne Sofie von Otter & Brooklyn Rider | So Many Things - bonus track | 2016 | YouTube•AllMusic•Amazon.uk |
| Elena Rivera y el Cuarteto LatinoAmericano | The Juliet Letters | 2019 | press release•YouTube |
Meet The Bird That Still Sings To The Stars Mac Os 11
| Drew Sarich and The Dead Poet Quartet | performed live, 2010-12-12, Porgy and Bess, Vienna, Austria | 2010 | YouTube•Wikipedia |
| Tomer Sharon & Israel Contemp. String Quartet | performed live, 2007, Jewish Community Centre, Vancouver, Canada | 2007 | website•YouTube•imdb.com |
| Sol String Quartet and Paul Villaluz | performed live, 2008-12-06, College of Southern Nevada, Las Vegas | 2008 | YouTube•lasvegassun.com |
| Spectrum Ensemble and Bavat Marom | performed live, 2013 | 2013 | bavatmarom.com•YouTube |
| Norma Waterson | Norma Waterson | 1996 | Allmusic•Amazon |
| Norma Waterson | Bespoke Songs, Lost Dogs, Detours & Rendezvous | 1998 | Allmusic•Amazon |
Internal links
- Elvis Costello Home Page: The Juliet Letters•lyrics•Info page
- Lyrics•Covers
External links
Retrieved from 'http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php?title=The_Birds_Will_Still_Be_Singing&oldid=17421286'
A friend of mine lent me this book, insisting that it was a fantastic true story about this World War II hero who routinely snuck out of a POW camp over a period of almost five years. She was about half right — it's a fantastic story, but I (and quite a few people who've actually done the research) have trouble believing it's all that true…
Young British soldier Joseph Horace Greasley (called 'Jim' throughout the novel by his friends) spent about five years of World War II in a German POW camp, after his commander surrendered his entire Battalion about seven weeks into Jim's service. During this time, he endured a death march to the first camp, wretched circumstances (starvation, lice, beatings) and forced labor under cruel German guards. Things started to look up after he and some others got moved to a newer, (relatively) nicer camp, located on property owned by a German-hating man — a man with a gorgeous daughter named Rosa who acted as interpreter for the camp guards. Jim and Rosa begin a love affair that continues even after he's moved to a third camp. Jim sneaks out more than 200 times, meeting with Rosa and even raiding nearby villages for extra rations for Jim and his fellow prisoners. Sadly, when the Russians liberate Jim's camp, he never makes it back to Rosa and eventually learns that she died in childbirth, presumably with his son.
Like I said, definitely an interesting story. Jim's descriptions of his experiences during the march and in the camps brings up that same angry, horrible sadness that all World War II stories do. His tale definitely has a narrow focus on this one British soldier's experience, however — no real mention of Hitler or what was happening in other, non-POW camps across the country. Supposedly, an 89-year-old Greasley recited all of this to a ghostwriter named Ken Scott. If so, there's some major issues with that. Several times, we get perspectives from other characters — guards mostly — that Jim could not possibly have witnessed/been privy to (such as a guard ordering an execution on a snitch and how it all went down). Several chapters also focus on a Russian soldier named Ivan, as his troop comes to free the POWs (and pillage and rape along the way). Jim claims that Ivan told him his whole story right after they were liberated — but Ivan dies very shortly after. And a lot of the story just seems untrue — Jim comes off as such an incredible, daring hero, worshiped by his fellow prisoners and Rosa (whom he insists on calling his 'English Rose', despite her German heritage, and she readily agrees). It just seems very exaggerated and self-serving. And almost no corroboration exists for any part of the story, which Greasley told some forty or fifty years after the events took place. No other witnesses could be found, no sources cited. I don't want to call Greasley a liar — he obviously went through a lot, and I'm sure a lot of this really happened, but I definitely read each page with some skepticism in mind.
