Springsteen's latest album goes on sale March 6, but a single has already been released from Wrecking Ball, along with a lyric sheet, and the album song list is available as well. Fans of Springsteen's straight-up political songs may have a treat in store, but as usual, Springsteen delivers his political commitment with sometimes ambivalent expressions.

Take the single, "We Take Care of Our Own." The song could be calling for Republican-style compassionate conservativism--Americans prefer to take care of themselves and each other free of interference--but with its references to the Superdome and shotgun shacks of Chicago, it could also be an indictment of a nation and a government that has seemingly forgotten how to take care of its own.

But fertile ambiguity doesn't really explain the line about how the Calvary stayed home. That just looks like  a "verbal typo," as The Wrap described it.

According to the New Testament, Calvary is the name of the hill upon which Jesus's crucifixion took place. (Also called Golgotha, "place of the skulls.") It can mean any site of tremendous agony, in which case it is usually lowercase and often used particularly for artistic agonies of creation.

What it can't mean is a mounted military force. That's cavalry, from the French "cheval," horse.

Mounted military forces can seem romantic these days, and more than a few war movies have featured thrilling last-minute battle-turning charges by cavalry troops. From the twelfth-century French classic  Song of Roland to Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade,"  the cavalry has loomed rather large in our collective military imagination, often as saviors of a sort.

But in Bruce's song, what's he calling to mind? The sense of the lyrics demands a reference to mounted soldiers' saving graces. The spelling refers to a biblical place where Jesus's sacrifice made him the Christian Savior. Was Bruce bringing in a reference to the agonies of Jesus as he died? Or to the absence of cavalry, who are not riding in to save the day in modern America? What did he hope to achieve by conflating the two?

Perhaps it wasn't intentional. Perhaps he just made a mistake.

 

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Ellen Scordato has 25 years' book publishing experience as an editor, copy editor, proofreader, and managing editor. She's now a partner in The Stonesong Press, a nonfiction book producer and agency. In addition to her work at Stonesong, Ellen has taught grammar, punctuation, and style at the New School for more than 12 years in the English Language Studies department and taught English as a Second Language at Cabrini Immigrant Services and the College of Mount Saint Vincent Language Institute.