It was produced by Fred Foster, released in July 1971 on Monument Records and followed his critically acclaimed debut Kristofferson.

[1] That year, Kristofferson started an eighteen-month tour, during which he suffered a bout of walking pneumonia, which was worsened by his alcohol consumption.

[3] Upon returning to Nashville, Tennessee, in early 1971, he received with his mail at Combine Music Joplin's posthumous album Pearl, which at the time was still unreleased.

The song is set in Tally-Ho Tavern, a Music Row bar where Kristofferson worked earlier as a bartender;[5] the patrons included musicians and songwriters.

As the character gets drunk, he tries to warn the woman of "The Silver Tongued Devil" that alcohol brings out in him and how it controls him, inevitably seducing women.

[7][5] According to Kristofferson's biographers, due to the autobiographical nature of the record, he may have experienced guilt because his sporadic partners aimed to romantic-related results, while he did not.

[12] "Good Christian Soldier" was written by Billy Joe Shaver, who was working for singer Bobby Bare as a songwriter.

[15] "Breakdown (A Long Way From Home)" is featured on Kristofferson's acting debut, the 1972 film Cisco Pike, which was still unreleased at the time of the album's recording.

[17] The following track "Lovin' Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)", which was written by Kristofferson in 1969 as he accompanied Dennis Hopper during the production of The Last Movie, was also included in Cisco Pike.

[22] He opened the song by listing the artists who inspired it; Chris Gantry, Johnny Cash, Bobby Neuwirth, Norman Blake, Norbert Putnam, Funky Donnie Fritts, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Dennis Hopper, Jerry Jeff Walker and Paul Siebel.

Kristofferson listened repeatedly to Janis Joplin's album Pearl and was affected by her recent death; he wrote the song in one night.

[25] The cover of the album shows Kristofferson standing front-and-center while to his left, his own faded figure—which was intended to represent "The Silver Tongued Devil"—is visible.

In the liner notes, Kristofferson wrote; "call these echoes of the going-ups and the coming-downs, walking pneumonia and run-of-the-mill madness, colored with guilt, pride and a vague sense of despair".

[34] The track "Lovin' Her Was Easier (Than Anything I'll Ever Do Again)" was released as a single on August 21, 1971, and was backed with "Epitaph (Black and Blue)"; it entered the top thirty of Billboard's Hot 100 chart and peaked at number twenty-six.

[37] Robert Christgau of The Village Voice rated the album C− and criticized what he considered Kristofferson's "pet paradox" as a songwriter and a "hobo intellectual as Music Row hit man".

The review predicted The Silver Tongued Devil and I would have "much less impact" than his first album but that it presents a "much more assured singer" than his debut record.

[39] Audio called Kristofferson a writer "filled with pathos and compassion" who "put both into his lyrics" and said the release benefits from his "husky, sorrowful voice".

[40] In a later review, William Ruhlmann of AllMusic said that the album contains "several excellent songs" but said it "could not live up to its predecessor ... the antiestablishment tone of some of Kristofferson was gone along with much of the wry humor, and in their place were touches of morbidity and sentimentality".