Add a little sugar

“Add a little sugar, honeysuckle…” — Curtis Mayfield opens “The Makings of You” like he’s reciting a recipe, and in a way he is. It’s a nursery rhyme grown up: sugar and spice, reworked by that feather-light falsetto into one of the tenderest things on Curtis, his 1970 solo debut.

I love where it sits in his catalogue. The single pairing put this song on the flip side of “(Don’t Worry) If There’s a Hell Below We’re All Going to Go” — apocalypse on one side, honeysuckle on the other, and both unmistakably the same man. Mayfield clearly knew what he had: four years later he handed the song to Gladys Knight for the Claudine soundtrack, where it plays as the film’s love theme.

Still, start with the original. The strings drift in like they’re not sure they’re invited, Mayfield barely rises above a murmur, and somehow that restraint says more than any grand declaration would.