Empty Words

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This article is about the John Cage book. "Empty Words" is also the title of songs by Bowery Electric, Böhse Onkelz, Breed 77, Death (band), Quasi and The Rich Kids.

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. The book contains the following works:

• "Foreword" (1978)
• "Preface to Lecture on the Weather" (1979)
• "How the Piano Came to be Prepared" (1973)
• "Empty Words" (1974–5)
• "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)

[edit] See also

• List of compositions by John Cage

v • d • e Books by John Cage Silence (1961) • A Year from Monday (1968) • M (1973) • Empty Words (1979) • X (1983) • Anarchy (1988)