"[9] On Nyro's insistence, the album's lyric sheet was printed with perfumed ink, and Kort wrote in 2002 that it still maintained a pleasant scent.

[10] The album's themes are of passion, love, romance, death, and drugs, and the songs are delivered in Nyro's distinctive brash, belting vocals.

[citation needed] It is generally considered to be Nyro's most accessible and most famous work, although it is arguably not the most commercially successful or critically favored (both honors go to the follow-up, New York Tendaberry).

Six songs from Eli and the Thirteenth Confession are included in the ballet Quintet performed by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

He cited Nyro's "fiercely emotional singing" and the songs' "abrupt changes of tempo and style" as reasons why it was "unlike anything that had been heard" in the genre.

[1] Later that month, Entertainment Weekly's Alanna Nash wrote that the album confirmed Nyro as "pop's high priestess" and called her one of the genre's "most influential American songwriters.

She credited it, alongside her next two albums, with shaping the "personal, opera-tinged" style of musicians Kate Bush, Cyndi Lauper, Tori Amos and Alicia Keys.

The 20-year-old Nyro performed the spare, solo demos of "Lu", "Stoned Soul Picnic" and "Emmie" on piano and multi-tracked her own voice to add harmonies.

The accompanying booklet includes photographs and recording details, as well as liner notes by Rick Petreycik and a back-cover recollection by Phoebe Snow.