Eli and the Thirteenth Confession

Eli and the Thirteenth Confession was produced by Nyro and Charlie Calello, who also arranged it, with Roy Segal and Stan Tonkel as engineers, and reached number 181 on the Billboard 200, her first chart entry. Nyro played piano and sang, with Hugh McCracken on guitar, Chuck Rainey on bass, Artie Schroeck on drums and vibes, Joe Farrell on saxophone and flute, and Paul Griffin on piano on two tracks. Singles were "Farmer Joe" backed with "Lu" (April 1968), "Eli's Comin'" with "Sweet Blindness" (June) and "Stoned Soul Picnic" with "Sweet Blindness" (October). On the back cover Nyro wrote of kissing seventeen years of her life, her childhood, goodbye.

AllMusic, the Austin Chronicle and the Guardian each gave it five stars; Stephen Holden of the New York Times counted it among the most influential pop recordings of the late 1960s, and Alanna Nash called her pop's high priestess. Uncut ranked it 100th of all time in February 2016 and Rolling Stone placed it 463rd in 2020.