- "If I Ain't Got You" is a song recorded, written and produced by American artist Alicia Keys.
- Released in February 2004 as the second single from her second studio album The Diary of Alicia Keys (2003), the song peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained at number one on the Billboard Hot RandB/Hip-Hop Songs for six weeks.
- By the end of 2004, the single reached number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the US charts for 49 weeks.
- It is Keys' longest-running song in the United States, and is also the first song by a female artist to stay on the Billboard Hot RandB/Hip-Hop Songs chart for more than a year (fifty-six weeks).
- The song has won numerous awards, including two NAACP Image Awards, a Grammy Award in 2005 (Best Female RandB Vocal Performance), and a Grammy nomination the same year for Song of the Year.
- The CD cover was inspired by a tattoo on Alicia Keys' back, similar to the subject of Man Ray's painting, The Violin of Ingres (1924).
- Written, composed and produced by Alicia Keys, the single is considered another iconic song of the singer, after "Fallin'".
- And like the latter, "If I Ain't Got You" begins with the piano and is mainly composed of the musical genres of soul (classical), and jazz in particular.
- The song is about the complicated love life of a young couple where the girl only wants the love of her partner, not his money or gifts:
"Some people live for fortune, some for fame, some to play the game, some think looks define what's inside, and I've been there, but this life is boring, so full of superficial, some people want everything, but I don't want anything at all, if I don't have you, baby...".
- (From the first three choruses).
