Songfacts®:

• In "Make Me Yours," Bettye Swann has found the love of her life. She wants him to commit to her completely and to lay claim to romantic ownership of her.
• "Make Me Yours" was the biggest hit by the Louisiana-born soul singer Bettye Swann (birth name Betty Jean Champion). Born October 24, 1944, to a family of 14 children, she left Arcadia, Louisiana, for Los Angeles in 1963. By 1964, she met a new manager in a DJ named Al Scott. She recorded a regionally successful tune with "Don't Wait Too Long" and then dropped her big hit, "Make Me Yours."
  
  Off that success she launched into a music career that would include deals with heavyweights Capitol Records and Atlantic Records. In 1969 she had another successful song with a cover of "Don't Touch Me" by Jeannie Seely. Swann continued recording but never got back to the success she had with "Make Me Yours." She stopped performing in 1980 and started working as a schoolteacher under the name Betty Barton.
• In addition to reaching #21 on the Billboard Hot 100, the song hit #1 on the R&B chart and held the position for two weeks.
• Bettye Swann wrote the song. She covered other artists throughout her career but generally wrote her own music.
• The song has been covered by many artists.
  
  A version of "Make Me Yours" was the lone charting single released off the 1980 album Hold On by Motown group High Inergy (it hit #68 on the R&B chart).
  
  Z.Z. Hill (whose name is half the inspiration for the ZZ Top monicker) covered it the same year Swann put it out. He included it on his second album, A Whole Lot of Soul.
  Mary Wells, a defining Motown voice, covered it in 1968 on her 11th album, Servin' Up Some Soul.
  
  Ann Peebles covered it on her 1969 debut album, This is Ann Peebles.
  
  Jackie Moore had a minor hit with a cover in 1979. She put the song out as a standalone single and reached #72 on the R&B chart.
  
  In 2017 Syleena Johnson (best known for "All Falls Down" and "Guess What") covered the song on Rebirth of Soul, her eighth album.
  
  On her 1979 album Unwrapped, Denie LaSalle recorded the song as part of a medley that also included her hit "Trapped By A Thing Called Love" and Jackie Moore's hit "Precious, Precious."
  
  In 2009, Vaneese Thomas covered the song on her Soul Sister Vol 1 album.