Who's to Bless and Who's to Blame

If 1974’s Spooky Lady’s Sideshow showed Kris Kristofferson wallowing in the confusion and despair of mass success, then 1975’s Who’s To Bless and Who’s to Blame finds him accepting that confusion with a stiff upper lip. “Keep your hands above the table and your backs against the wall,” he sings in the title song. “Toss your chips in with your chances boy let 'em lay the way they fall / Cause the moral doesn't matter broken rules are all the same / To the broken or the breaker who's to bless and who's to blame.” As a songwriter and singer, Kristofferson had always appeared sure of his convictions, and his place in the world, but here the only thing he’s sure of is moral fallibility. “Simple truth ain’t simple when it’s sad,” he sings on “If It’s All the Same To You.” The album is sardonic (“The Year 2000 Minus 25”), surreal (“Rocket to Stardom”) and desolate (“Stranger”), but even as it staggers through the skepticism and woe of the mid-'70s, it nonetheless feels like Kristofferson’s call to persevere.