If It's Over

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"If It's Over"

Single by Mariah Carey
from the album MTV Unplugged
Released	1992
Format	3" single, cassette single
Recorded	Kaufman Astoria Studios, New York City; March 16, 1992
Genre	R&B/Soul
Length	4:38 (Emotions album version) 3:47 (MTV Unplugged version)
Label	Columbia
Writer(s)	Mariah Carey, Carole King
Producer(s)	Mariah Carey, Walter Afanasieff
Mariah Carey singles chronology
"I'll Be There" (1992)	"If It's Over" (1992)	"Dreamlover" (1993)

"If It's Over" is a song written by American singer Mariah Carey and Carole King, and produced by Carey and Walter Afanasieff for Carey's second album Emotions (1991). King had originally suggested that Carey cover her song "(You Make Me Feel like) a Natural Woman", but Carey refused, saying she preferred writing her own material and felt incapable of matching Aretha Franklin's cover. Several months after the release of Emotions, Carey performed the song during her appearance on the television show MTV Unplugged, as the second number on her setlist. Following the release of the EP MTV Unplugged, "If It's Over" was released as the album's second and final single in the third quarter of 1992 (see 1992 in music). The protagonist of this big band-styled track gets a case of the blues, and tells her lover that she loves him but that he should stop playing mind games, and "if it's over" he should let her go.

All of Carey's previous singles had become hits in the United States, with six of them reaching number one. Executives at Sony/Columbia believed that the elements of big band, jazz and soul in "If It's Over" would conflict with Carey's "pop star" image and jeopardize her chart record, and decided not release the song as a single in the U.S.^{[citation needed]} The single was released in a limited number of countries such as Japan and the Netherlands, and failed in most markets. The single's video, directed by Larry Jordan, is compiled of footage from Carey's performance of the song on MTV Unplugged.