Everything to Know About the Original Tracks

Wicked: For Good has given fans two new songs to “dance through life” to.

Starring Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande as Elphaba and Glinda, Wicked: For Good is the second part of the film adaptation of the Tony-winning Broadway musical. At the heart of the story is an exploration into good versus evil, though fans of the stage production know that it’s soundtrack — which won the 2005 Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album — is what brings it to life.

Although Wicked: For Good follows the story line of Act Two of the Broadway musical, several changes were made by director Jon M. Chu when bringing it from stage to screen, including the addition of two new tracks written by musical composer Stephen Schwartz: “No Place Like Home,” sung by Erivo’s Elphaba, and “The Girl in the Bubble,” sung by Grande’s Glinda.

A few weeks before the film’s release, Erivo and Grande previewed the original tracks during Wicked: One Wonderful Night, a two-hour NBC musical special. Now that Wicked: For Good has officially hit theaters, the tracks are out in the world and ready to become your next new obsession.

Here’s everything to know about the two new original tracks featured in Wicked: For Good.

Warning: Wicked: For Good spoilers ahead.

“No Place Like Home”: Sung by Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba

What is “No Place Like Home” About?

After Elphaba’s nanny Dulcibear returns and questions her desire to save Oz rather than escape, the bittersweet ballad hears her articulate her love for the town, even in the face of the discrimination and cruelty she’s experienced growing up there.

During the NBC Wicked: One Wonderful Night special, Grande introduced the track, explaining that it’s about “Elphaba’s dedication to protecting Oz, even as she faces rejection from everyone around her.”

In a December 2024 interview with Variety, Erivo shared that she worked closely with Schwartz to create the original song, which she said is “so special to me.”

“When we filmed it, the entire crew was in tears,” she continued. “I hope audiences are ready — it’s a song that speaks to the heart of who Elphaba is.”

When does Elphaba sing “No Place Like Home”?

A clear homage to Dorothy’s iconic line from The Wizard of Oz, “No Place Like Home” is sung by Elpbaba in the first half of Wicked: For Good, after she discovers a group of animals escaping Oz via a secret tunnel under the Yellow Brick Road.

What are the lyrics to “No Place Like Home”?

“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?

When you feel you can’t fight anymore
Just tell yoursеlf
There’s no place likе 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 will grieve
For all you leave behind
Oz belongs to you too

Those who would take it from you
Spout a lie to sell yourself
You go their way or go
It’s them we’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 home”

“The Girl in the Bubble”: Sung by Ariana Grande as Glinda

What is “The Girl in the Bubble” about?

The heartfelt ballad places Glinda in a moment of deep self-reflection, as she grapples with her privilege and torn feelings between her loyalty to the citizens of Oz and to Elphaba, who has been branded the Wicked Witch of the West.

When Erivo introduced the sneak peek of the song during the NBC special, she described it as a “poignant solo” that “captures the moment where Glinda decides not to just call herself Good, but to truly become Glinda the Good.”

The song marks a defining turning point for the character, signaling Glinda’s evolution from her image-obsessed popular persona — one who lived in a “bubble” both literally and figuratively — into the woke and genuinely “Good” leader she grows to be.

It is also a clear callback to her earlier confrontation with Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey) after their engagement, when she admits that she couldn’t resist the popularity granted to her as a propaganda tool for Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh) and the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum).

When does Glinda sing “The Girl in the Bubble”?

Glinda sings “The Girl in the Bubble” toward the second half of Wicked: For Good, after an angry mob of people gather outside the beautiful chambers of Emerald City in a hunt for Elphaba, prompting her to contemplate the part she has played in everything that’s happened.

What are the lyrics to “The Girl in the Bubble”?

“Look

There’s that beautiful girl
With the 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 love
She’s the girl in the bubble
The 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 try to be
Eventually
It’s hard to unsee what you’ve seen

And so that beautiful girl
With the beautiful life
Has a quеstion that haunts her somehow
If she comеs 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, ah, 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?”

Additional Musical Changes in Wicked: For Good

In addition to two new songs, there were a few other changes to beloved tunes from the soundtrack, including Glinda singing “Fiyero” at the beginning of “No Good Deed” instead of Elphaba.

Meanwhile, “Thank Goodness” is split into two songs, with the start of the track becoming “Every Day More Wicked.”

As for Nessarose’s (Marissa Bode) “Wicked Witch of the East” track, there are some meaningful changes that connect to the silver heels she inherited from her mother. In the musical, she sings that she is “longing to kick up my heels” — lyrics that were scrapped in the movie’s version. Instead, she sings a new verse:

“That night at the Ozdust / Boq danced with me there / And it felt like he loved me then / That night when I felt I was floating on air / I want to feel that again,” Nessarose sings.

The desire to feel like she is “floating on air” is what prompts Elphaba to cast a spell on Nessarose’s shoes, rather than her sister “pleading for a disability to be fixed,” Chu told PEOPLE ahead of the premiere.