Stephen Schwartz details how he nearly wrote a completely different version of “No Place Like Home.”

Cynthia Erivo’s new Wicked: For Good song almost had a ‘St. Elmo’s Fire’ ’80s rock sound, says composer

Stephen Schwartz details how he nearly wrote a completely different version of "No Place Like Home."

By Patrick Gomez

Patrick Gomez is an Executive Editor at . Formerly at People magazine and The A.V. Club, the Critics Choice and Television Critics Association member has appeared on 'Today,' 'Extra!,' 'Access Hollywood,' 'E! News,' 'CNN,' and 'Nightline,' and can be seen frequently on 'Good Morning America.' Follow the Texas Native at @PatrickGomezLA wherever your media is social for all things 'For All Mankind' 'Top Chef,' and puppy related.

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January 1, 2026 9:30 a.m. ET

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Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba singing 'No Place Like Home' in 'Wicked For Good'. Credit:

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 **.

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.'"

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"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.

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."

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Source: “EW Movies”