what he or she should do and how, although these instructions may be rather free (for instance, "Perform a disciplined action" may be an instruction, and according to Cage it does not mean "Do whatever you want", but rather a request to discipline oneself and/or free oneself of one's likes and dislikes.
)[1] Most of the texts are from Henry David Thoreau's journals (and volume 3 contains a portrait of Thoreau as material for one of the Solos); other authors whose texts Cage used in the work include Norman O.
Brown, Erik Satie, Marcel Duchamp, Buckminster Fuller, Merce Cunningham (from his notes on choreography) and Marshall McLuhan.
He also used words of Indo-European roots (reflecting on Cage's specialist knowledge of mushrooms), a glossary of English and foreign geographical terms and names of constellations and Earth population centers.
The first complete recording of Song Books was released on the Sub Rosa label in September 2012, with Loré Lixenberg and Gregory Rose (vocalists) and Robert Worby (sound design).