(February 15, 2025). If this world were mine… well, actually it kinda was — and wasn’t.
That’s the self-eating irony baked into the fate of “If This World Were Mine,” the 1967 ballad Marvin Gaye wrote by himself and teamed with Tammi Terrell to record — a song that, despite its sweeping theme of romantic longing and its enduring legacy via remakes and samples, never managed to claim its rightful place atop the charts. Time and again, across multiple generations, its biggest competition has not been other artists, but other tunes by the very artists who brought it into existence. And now, in 2025, its strange, almost poetic misfortune has played out once again — this time in the form of the hip-hop ballad that Kendrick Lamar and SZA have fashioned into another near-miss atop the Billboard charts, thanks to Kendrick’s own ubiquity.
This “the only thing stopping me is me” story begins in ‘67, when the first “If This World Were Mine” was released by Motown Records but hardly given a fair shot. The company’s Tamla label relegated the Gaye/Terrell duet to the B-side of “If I Could Build My Whole World Around You,” a song with an intentionally similar theme and title. The latter became the clear priority, climbing to No. 10 on the pop charts and No. 2 on the soul charts, while “If This World Were Mine” barely cracked the top 30 in the R&B world and sputtered out at No. 68 on the pop side. Marvin, in his pairing with Tammi, had built a musical world so intimate, so complete, yet it was overshadowed by another of their own recordings, one whose legacy isn’t nearly as enduring.
Fifteen years later, “If This World Were Mine” was reborn. Proven hitmaker Cheryl Lynn and rising production dynamo Luther Vandross — both signed to CBS Records — recorded a stunning, impassioned remake in 1982, this time with Luther — as duet partner and producer — reimagining the song’s lush arrangement for a new era. Everything about the record suggested it was destined to be a chart-topper. It entered Billboard’s then-named Black Singles chart at No. 70 in early September and stormed to No. 10 just four weeks later, speeding toward what seemed like an inevitable No. 1 spot.
And then history repeated itself.
At a crucial moment, while the Lynn/Vandross duet sat at No. 4 (with a bullet), another Marvin Gaye composition — his own comeback smash “Sexual Healing” — caught fire, leaping over “If This World Were Mine” and settling into the No. 3 position on the Billboard Black Singles chart on its way to a historic ten-week run at No. 1. Gaye, who had been absent from the top of the R&B charts for over five years, was back in triumphant form. He was also now signed to CBS Records’ Columbia label, the same one that was home to the new version of “If This World Were Mine.”
And as if that weren’t enough, just one week later, Luther Vandross himself leapfrogged his own masterpiece when his newer single “Bad Boy/Having a Party” jumped ahead to No. 3, holding “If This World Were Mine” at No. 4 where it ultimately peaked. The ballad, full of yearning for a world just out of reach, was once again denied a bigger moment… this time by the very men — Gaye and Vandross — who had given it life.
Fast-forward to 2024-25, and the story has unfolded once more, this time in hip-hop form and what likely represented the best chance yet for the original song or its descendants to exorcise their own demons.
Kendrick Lamar and SZA’s “Luther,” named in honor of Vandross and built on a sample of the 1982 version, entered the Billboard Hot 100 in December with all the makings of a major No. 1 hit. But fate — cruel, familiar fate — has had other plans. “Luther” debuted at No. 3, behind two other Kendrick Lamar tracks from his latest album GNX: “squabble up” at No. 1 and “tv off” at No. 2. Once again, a song rooted in “If This World Were Mine” found itself edged out — this time, not just by the song’s writer or producer but by the artist performing it — and with two songs at that.
Yet “Luther” proved to have something its fellow K.Dot competition lacked: sustained growth. Months after the initial GNX buzz began to fade, “Luther” remained in the top ten, even reclaiming its No. 3 peak as Kendrick’s Super Bowl halftime performance approached. SZA’s surprise appearance alongside Kendrick at the big game on Sunday (Feb. 9) seemed to position “Luther” as the rightful heir to No. 1 for its long-awaited moment at the top. But once again, the world appears to have slipped just out of its grasp.
The culprit? Yet another Kendrick song.
When the new Hot 100 rankings are revealed on Monday (Feb. 17), “Luther” is projected to inch from No. 3 to 2 — only to be outdone by Kendrick’s “Not Like Us,” which is slated to move 15-1 after riding a wave of viral momentum from the halftime show. It’s “If This World Were Mine” all over again: a song with all the makings of a chart-topping classic, unable to break through because the only thing standing in its way is the artist who helped create it.
Maybe this is all just coincidence, a weird quirk of chart history. But maybe — just maybe —this song has always existed in a world it can never truly claim as its own. It’s a song about imagining a love so complete, so perfect, that the rest of the world disappears. And yet, for nearly 60 years, Marvin and Tammi’s “If This World Were Mine” and its musical descendants by Cheryl & Luther and now Kendrick & SZA have remained just outside of that dream. Each time they reached for something greater, they were pulled back — not by other artists, but by the very voices that gave them life.
“Luther” may still have a shot at No. 1 on the Hot 100 in the coming weeks. And if it happens, it will finally place Luther Vandross’ name on the billing for a No. 1 song on that chart — perhaps not in the way he intended — but the realization of an elusive goal that the late singer chased during his lifetime and never achieved as an artist.
If it doesn’t happen, then No. 2 isn’t such a bad place to be. It’s the number of a song that lingers, a song that refuses to be forgotten, one for which time and chance simply didn’t align. And maybe, in the end, that’s the truest legacy of “If This World Were Mine” and “Luther.” Not chart-toppers technically, but something even better: songs that will live on in a world that is theirs, long after their moments should have passed.
DJRob
DJRob (he/him) is a freelance music blogger from the East Coast who covers R&B, hip-hop, disco, pop, rock and country genres – plus lots of music news and current stuff! You can follow him on Bluesky at @djrobblog.bsky.social, X (formerly Twitter) at @djrobblog, on Facebook or on Meta’s Threads.
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