Wicked Lyrics - "Thank Goodness" with Comments by Stephen Schwartz
Lyrics from the Broadway Musical WickedSee Lyrics below, after commentary about the origins of the song "Thank Goodness." About "Thank Goodness""Thank Goodness" started out as "Happy Healing Day," an earlier take on a second act opening number. The citizens were healing from the stress of always having to be on the lookout for the Wicked Witch. Here's composer-lyricist Stephen Schwartz's explanation of his process: From issue 2 of The Schwartz Scene newsletter COPYRIGHT PROTECTED From Stephen Schwartz I am sitting here watching what looks as if it is going to be a record amount of snowfall white-out the sky and make a bleak but beautiful monochromatic wilderness of my yard. Since my house is warm enough and I have a fire going and enough food for a couple of days, this gives me a feeling of coziness and, yes, smugness. But I what I like best about it is that, forced to be a shut-in, I have no choice but to do the work I have assigned myself on WICKED. I am just finishing the opening number for the second act. All of the lyrics for the number are done, and I have just a little more music to solve in the middle of the number to complete it, or at least this first draft of it. I am determined to have it finished by the end of the year, tomorrow -- an arbitrary deadline, true, but one which I feel intensely enough to be sure I meet. Uncharacteristically, I have found I am often writing lyrics before music on this project. Perhaps that is because the story of WICKED is so intricate and complex, I have to be sure each song is telling not just a story, but the exact right story. Sometimes this is challenging. This opening for Act Two is a case in point. Act One ends with the transformation of the leading character into the Wicked Witch of the West we have come to know (and love), and Act Two opens some months later. We want to find out how her fame, or rather infamy, has spread throughout Oz. I spent several weeks compiling material for a chorus number in which various rumors and exaggerations about her would be exchanged. I had pages and pages of lyric ideas and musical sketches. Yet every time I tried to write the actual number, something stopped me. The tone felt wrong. It kept feeling as if I had suddenly slipped into the world of children's theatre, and it lacked the subtextual richness and satiric bite that we think we have found for the first act. Finally, after a long discussion with Winnie Holzman, my collaborator who is writing the book for WICKED, we discovered that it was the wrong event for the number. There was no story context, and thus the number was quickly telling us something we more or less already knew and then was simply marking time. We decided to have the people of Emerald City gathering not simply to gossip about the Wicked Witch, but for a specific purpose -- to watch the celebrities arrive for the fabulous engagement party of Glinda, who has recently been named Good Witch of the North. Since we also know the character she is becoming engaged to and have feelings about him, it gives a strong forward push to the story. within this context, the people can still worry about the Wicked Witch arriving to spoil the celebration, and they can gossip and exchange misinformation about her, but there is immediately a more sardonically comic tone to the scene. Once this discovery was made, I have been able to write the number relatively quickly. I have no doubt that there are other writers who could have made the original idea work, but I couldn't do it. Likewise, I'm sure there are writers who would not have liked the context we chose, but it worked for me. This is one of the things that is endlessly fascinating to me about the writing process: how individual each writer's response to material is. The goal for Winnie and me is to have a draft of the second act -- book and at least the most important numbers, plus re-writes of the first act -- completed in time for a reading in Los Angeles at the end of February. Is this another arbitrary deadline? Absolutely. But it is those deadlines that, at least for me, make it possible for me to get the work done. Otherwise, I would procrastinate forever. For the next Quarterly, I should be able to report on how the reading went and what our next goal for WICKED is. The snow is still falling heavily and swirling enough to discourage anyone with any sense from venturing out. So I am going to close now and march myself off to the piano and get that damn number finished! Best to all of you for the new year, Stephen ---- copyright by Carol de Giere, editor, The Schwartz Scene (Do not reproduce without permission) "Thank Goodness"by Stephen Schwartz (copyrighted)CITIZENS OF OZ A HYSTERICAL WOMAN AN OUTRAGED MAN ALL GLINDA CROWD GLINDA CROWD MORRIBLE CROWD GLINDA MORRIBLE(spoken) And Glinda dear, we're happy for you! As Press (sung) The day you were first summoned Then with a jealous squeal PEOPLE IN CROWD FIYERO CROWD FIYERO GLINDA (sung) That's why I couldn't be happier And if that joy, that thrill CROWD GLINDA CROWD GLINDA CROWD GLINDA GLINDA AND CROWD ________ See details about the sheet music: Wicked Sheet music for "Thank Goodness" and all Wicked songs Back to Wicked lyrics index Back to Wicked home page - Index to 50 Wicked-related pages |