Move On Up

Move On Up is on Mayfield's 1970 debut album Curtis. The album version runs nearly nine minutes, including a false ending. It was released as a single in the United States but failed to chart. An edited version spent 10 weeks in the top 50 of the UK singles chart in 1971 and peaked at number 12. In 2021 Rolling Stone placed it at number 474 on its list of the 500 greatest songs.

Stevie Chick of the Guardian called it what would become Mayfield's signature tune, an upbeat anthem of hope with a horn fanfare and a bustling breakbeat, and wrote that its vocal climbs from tenor to falsetto. The instrumental coda gives the band room, over a break from the drummer Donald Simmons and the conga player Master Henry Gibson. Alexis Petridis wrote of nine minutes of life-affirming joy in the full-length version.

Live and covers

Mayfield and his band played it on the television show Beat Club in Bremen, Germany, on 19 January 1972, in a set that also held We People Who Are Darker Than Blue, Keep On Keepin' On and We're a Winner. The recording is on the Internet Archive. The disco trio Destination covered it in a 1979 medley that reached number one on the disco chart for four weeks, and the Jam released a version on an extended play in 1982. Just Blaze sampled its horns for Kanye West's 2006 single Touch the Sky. Arsenal use it as a post-game anthem at the Emirates Stadium.