‘The Empty Bullring’ is a song written by Kate Bush. It was released as the B-side of the single Breathing.

Cover versions

‘The Empty Bullring’ was covered by Thomas Eklund.

Kate about ‘The Empty Bullring’

This is a song that I first had ideas for quite a few years ago. It is really about someone who is in love with someone who is obsessed with something that is pretty futile. They can’t get the person to accept the fact that it is a futile obsession. To put it into a sort of story form: he became a matador, and got gored so badly that he couldn’t carry on. But at night he climbs out of the window and runs off to a bullring, when there is no-one there, and he fights a bull that doesn’t exist. (…) Tamlain is a girl in a traditional fairy story, who is locked up in an ivory tower.

Kate Bush Club newsletter, 1983

Lyrics

Disappears through a window
Out of my mind
Trying to keep him at home
Out into Rome
In the early hours,
Leaving me here
Like Tamlaine in her Tower
You are going
To the empty bullring,
Taking your red cloak
To regain something

Oh, you rolling matador,
Kill in your eyes
For the toro
That shut the door
To glory and gore
The throw of the rose–
It’s all you lived for,
But you’ve lost it all

Your red streak
On the plot where many feet
Left it incomplete
But you kept the meaning.
You feel him charge again,
And you feel him cut you down
Right on the spot
Where you thought
You were ground for good.
These flights of fantasy
Make your wounds more sore,
But you’ve every right
To even grab at the last straw
Oh, Lord…

Oh, you rolling matador,
Kill in your eyes
For the toro
That shut the door
To glory and gore
The throw of the rose
It’s all you lived for,
But you’ve lost it all
Lost it all
Lost it all