Cynthia Erivo's new “Wicked: For Good” song almost had a 'St. Elmo's Fire' '80s rock sound, says composer
- - Cynthia Erivo's new “Wicked: For Good” song almost had a 'St. Elmo's Fire' '80s rock sound, says composer
Patrick GomezJanuary 1, 2026 at 8:00 PM
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Universal
Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba singing 'No Place Like Home' in 'Wicked For Good'
There's no place like home, but "Home" was almost very different in Wicked: For Good.
After it was decided that the film version of Wicked would be told over two films instead of one, there were suddenly "certain storytelling and character development demands on us that don't exist in the show," lyricist and composer Stephen Schwartz tells Entertainment Weekly.
That ultimately resulted in two new songs for the film's leads, Cynthia Erivo's Elphaba and Ariana Grande's Glinda.
The Wicked: For Good team has previously shared how they made many last-minute changes to Glinda's "Girl in the Bubble" — including stripping the intro music and playing with its preceding scene — but now Schwartz reveals the very early changes made to Elphaba's "No Place Like Home."
"The tone of the music went through a whole process," he says. "I did a couple of demos that [director Jon M. Chu] felt sounded too much like an '80s rock song. So we worked on how to develop it so that it had a drive to it, and a slightly anthemic quality, but didn't tip over into 'St. Elmo's Fire.'"
"It was very cool," Schwartz adds. "I also think 'St. Elmo's Fire' is very cool. But it probably didn't belong at that spot in the movie."
That said, the creative team wasn't initially certain where to put "No Place Like Home" in the film.
Universal
Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba in 'Wicked: For Good'
Winnie Holzman, writer of the stage musical and co-writer of the film, "came up with the idea that animals would be trying to escape, and that Elphaba would come upon them and try to persuade them not to," Schwartz recently told EW of the origins of the song. The tune "did move around a bit" before they found where in Wicked: For Good it belonged.
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"There was more of the song written, as frequently happens, than wound up in the movie," Schwartz also divulged. "There was a whole intro that [Elphaba] did by herself, which is now one spoken line of dialogue in her cave. And there was a whole thing afterwards when she arrived back at her childhood home and responded to it. Those went away, and just the core of her in treating the animals remained."
on Entertainment Weekly
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
