First edition
Author	John Cage
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Music
Publisher	Wesleyan University Press
Publication date	1979
Media type	Print
Pages	199
ISBN	978-0819550323

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)