Wicked: For Good has officially premiered, and with it came two brand-new songs.
Written especially for stars Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, the songs are poignant expansions of both Elphaba and Glinda's character arcs, allowing composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz to step back into Oz with fresh eyes.
Warning, do not read on if you do not wish to be spoiled about their context and content! You can hear these new songs on November 21, when the Wicked: For Good soundtrack is released.
READ: All the Changes Wicked: For Good Made to Act 2 of Wicked
The first new song, "No Place Like Home," is performed by Elphaba in the first half of the film, after she discovers a parade of animals fleeing Oz through a secret tunnel under the Yellow Brick Road. For the first time in many years, she comes face to face with her childhood nanny, Dulcibear (voiced by the Olivier winner Sharon D. Clarke), who questions why Elphaba is fighting to save Oz, instead of escaping while she still can.
The song, which starts as a delicately fraught internal question, soon blossoms into a call to action as Elphaba urges the animals to reconsider what it means to abandon their homeland. The complete lyrics are below.
[ELPHABA]
Why do I love this place
That's never loved me
A place that seems to be devolving
And even wanting to
But Oz is more than just a place
It's a promise, an idea
And I want to help make it come true
Why should a land have so much meaning
When dark times befall it
It's only land, made of dirt and rock and loam
It's just a place that's familiar
And home's just what we call it
But there's no place like home
Don't we all know?
There's no place like home
[DULCIBEAR, SPOKEN]
Wе tried to understand
We just can't fight anymorе
[ELPHABA, SPOKEN]
We have to
[ELPHABA, SUNG]
When you feel you can't fight anymore
Just tell yourself
There's no place like home
When you feel it's not worth fighting for
Compel yourself because
There's no place like home
When you want to leave discouraged and resigned
That's what they want you to do
But think how you'll grieve for all you'll leave behind
Oz belongs to you too
Those who would take it from you
Spout a lie, to tell yourself
You go their way or go
It's them who you'll be defeating
If we keep on repeating
There's no place like home
There's no place like home
There's no place like home
If we just keep fighting for it
We will win back and restore it
There's no place like—
[Ed note: Yes, the film cuts off Erivo's final note, something we hope is instated for the soundtrack.]
The second new song, "The Girl in the Bubble," is more reflective than rousing. Performed by Glinda in the second half of the film, as a violent mob of witch hunters gather outside her door, the ballad marks the idealogical demise of Glinda's previous popular persona. Delivered in her beautiful yet cold chambers in the Emerald City, the song is a book end to her and Fiyero's fight at their engagement party, where he correctly identifies that she couldn't resist the "popularity" offered to her as a propaganda tool for Madame Morrible and the Wizard.
As the Ozian mob begins to come after Elphaba, Glinda ponders her role in all of it. By the end of "The Girl in the Bubble," Morrible and the Wizard's hold over her has dissolved as she instead takes hold of goodness as an action she has to perform, fleeing the Emerald City to save Elphaba from the witch hunters. The complete lyrics are below.
[GLINDA]
Look, there's that
Beautiful girl
With a beautiful life
Such a beautiful life
Built on lies
Cause all that's required
To live in a dream
Is endlessly closing your eyes
She spins such beautiful stories
To sing her to sleep
Full of magic and glory and nerve
She's the girl in the bubble
A bright shiny bubble
Blissfully floating above
Ah, but
The truth has a way
Of seeping on in
Beneath the surface and sheen
And blind as you've tried to be
Eventually
It's hard to unsee what you've seen
And so that beautiful girl
With a beautiful life
Has a question that haunts her somehow
If she comes down from the sky
Gives the real world a try
Who in the world is she now?
And though so much of her wishes
That she could float on
And the beautiful lies never stop
For the girl in the bubble
The pink shiny bubble
It's time for her bubble to pop
For the popular girl
High in the bubble
Isn't it high time
For her bubble to pop
