Empty Words

Empty Words: Writings '73–'78 is a book by American avant-garde composer John Cage (1912–1992), first published in 1979 by Wesleyan University Press.

Contents

 * "Foreword" (1978)
 * "Preface to Lecture on the Weather" (1979)
 * "How the Piano Came to be Prepared" (1973)
 * "Empty Words" (1974–75)
 * "Where Are We Eating? and What Are We Eating? (38 Variations on a Theme by Alison Knowles)" (1975)
 * "Series re Morris Graves" (1974)
 * "Sixty-One Mesostics Re and Not Re Norman O. Brown" (1979)
 * "Writing for the Second Time through Finnegans Wake" (1978)
 * "The Future of Music" (1974)

Also included are the following mesostics:
 * "Many Happy Returns" (1979)
 * "A Long Letter" (1977)
 * "Song" (1979)
 * "For S. Fort, Dancer" (1979)
 * "For William Mc N. Who studied with Ezra Pound" (1979)
 * "Wright's Oberlin House Restored by E. Johnson" (1979)
 * "'I'm the happiest person I know' (S.W.)" (1975)