[Kristofferson is best] known as a lyricist, and so any consideration of his latest album, Border Lord …, ought to begin there. At regular intervals, I was confronted with lines ranging from [confusion to inanity to hyperbole to the kind of pseudo-poeticizing which should have gone out with Bob Lind and the Electric Prunes]….

Kris' celebrations of machismo are his most patently stupid entries. When [Mick] Jagger works with the form, it's endearing because basically Jagger's assertiveness is compensating for failure. With Kris, it's sheer one-dimensional braggodocio….

"Smokey," "Border Lord" … and "Gettin' By High and Strange" … are the "love" songs least ambiguous in their intent. But when Kris attempts to shade in the emotional side of his affairs, he really steps in it. In "Little Girl Lost," for example, the stanzas alternate between objective consideration of his "little girl," bitterness at the way he was treated by her, and...