{"id":77,"date":"2025-10-10T01:55:52","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:55:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/?p=77"},"modified":"2025-10-10T01:58:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T05:58:13","slug":"a-playlist-for-gertrude-bell-with-only-good-songs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/a-playlist-for-gertrude-bell-with-only-good-songs\/","title":{"rendered":"The Life of Gertrude Bell: a playlist with only good songs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gertrude Bell is a complicated individual, as all these spies are turning out to be. I think what I found so fascinating about Bell is that despite her love for Iraq (however much was genuine, and not exoticized or orientalized), she was consistently loyal; loyal to her family and to Great Britain itself. This made reading her life as a narrative much simpler than Isabelle Eberhardt. I scoured my playlist to find (my best attempt at) the perfect mix of tragedy, beauty, the pull of discovery and power, and the split loyalties\/love that define the life and spywork of Gertrude Bell.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Rebel Prince – Rufus Wainwright\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    This song feels like Bell\u2019s love for the British Empire. It is her master, her sordid and salacious lover. While it seems like a far-off, looming entity, the Empire is something dear to Bell. However, she must leave England precisely because of her love. She projects her loyalty into her spywork, leaving the room she knows so well, but always looking back at her far away master. \u201cIt was appropriate that the Bells\u2019 family fortune was earned through\u2026 Britain\u2019s great strength, after all […] they worked not only to enhance their own communities but to maintain Britain\u2019s place in the sun. They took pride in the British Empire and its role as custodian of the universe\u201d (Wallach; \u201cOf Great and Honored Stock\u201d).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    2. Blacklisted – Neko Case<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    I interpret this song as Bell\u2019s growing entanglement and work for the British Empire. Her job of <\/span>perception<\/span><\/i> is based in <\/span>deception<\/span><\/i>. She must deceive the Iraqi people she loves to further the aims of the country she answers to, the country she believes has the power to make the trees bend in welcome. Why does the fast train of imperialism rage on, where does it end? Where do the passengers, the colonized, wait, in the meantime? \u201cAuthority would remain in the hands of dignified Sir Percy and a group of British advisors. London was convinced that it would control Iraq until that undetermined and presumably distant day when the untutored Iraqis had learned to govern themselves\u201d (Brian; Desert and Sown introduction).<\/span><\/p>\n

    3. Pearl Diver – Mistki\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

    Bell\u2019s love for Iraq and loyalty to England is paradoxical. She follows the tide to the beautiful that she wanted so badly, with the monster of imperialism over her shoulders. She occupies a middle space, a space of no feeling, and must continue diving deeper, becoming more entangled in life in Iraq and loyalty to Britain. Ironically, her loss of power towards the end of her life also mirrors the death of the song\u2019s treasure hunter. \u201cThe work has been so interesting that as far as I am concerned I couldn\u2019t have experienced better or even as good, a destiny\u201d (Bell; Letters II 658-659). \u201cShe employs her growing competence of Arabic to describe a backward country in the flux of change\u201d (Brian; Desert and Sown introduction).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    4. Shooting the Moon – OK Go<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

    I see Bell as this song\u2019s Big Hero. With her eventual loss of power, what is there to show? A country divided and kings made by a name no one seems to remember. Her time in Iraq was not exactly true, but it can\u2019t be discounted because she did truly love the people she met (in her own, perhaps infantilizing, belittling way). She can only deliver love to (or perhaps exert power over) Iraq by caring for her museum. Despite all her lies and deception, she would still wish them well in some (British-controlled) way. \u201cSeven years I\u2019ve been at this job of setting up an Arab State. If we fail it\u2019s little consolation to me personally that other generations may succeed, as I believe they must\u2026\u201d (Bell; Letters II 664).<\/span><\/p>\n

    5. Ghir Enta – Souad Massi\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

    I imagine this as Bell\u2019s love letter to Iraq before she dies. Today, Iraq is with her and the British, but tomorrow, who knows? Iraq has become her home, it\u2019s a place she cannot live with as is, but cannot live away from. It\u2019s tragic and beautiful! Iraq is her true love, perhaps because it\u2019s the place she was able to leave her mark. Souad Massi’s Algerian, but the song is in Arabic, so I think Bell would appreciate the song for its exotic Arab aesthetic. \u201cThey never elect any other European. That\u2019s the sort of thing that makes it difficult to leave\u201d (Bell; Letters II 667). \u201cI love seeing [Iraqi visitors] and they are most useful for purposes of information\u201d (Bell; Letters I 407).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    6. Hey Hey Hey – Eilen Jewell<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

    Gertrude Bell did sleep off her regret in a very literal way. Whether her death was a true suicide or not, she was undoubtedly sad and lonely. I see this song as Bell\u2019s tired goodbye to her beloved Iraq, the place she couldn\u2019t quite keep a grasp on. \u201cThere are long moments when I feel very lonely\u2026 I am aware that I myself have much less control over my emotions than I used to have\u201d (Bell; Letters II 658, 662). \u201cGertrude Bell took an overdose of sleeping pills. All of Baghdad attended her funeral, along with an honor guard of sheiks from her beloved desert\u201d (Brian; Desert and Sown introduction).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Gertrude Bell is a complicated individual, as all these spies are turning out to be. I think what I found so fascinating about Bell is that despite her love for Iraq (however much was genuine, and not exoticized or orientalized), she was consistently loyal; loyal to her family and to Great Britain itself. This made … <\/p>\n

    Continue reading “The Life of Gertrude Bell: a playlist with only good songs”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5983,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,12,13,14,11,4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-colonial-fantasies","category-deception","category-empire","category-imperialism","category-self-and-other","category-solitude","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77\/revisions\/139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/gss206-f25\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}