Empty Words
# 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)
