For Good

Album

Wicked: For Good – The Soundtrack

Label

Republic Records

Genre

Stage & Screen

Composer(s)

Stephen Schwartz

Entered Chart

Dec 6, 2025

Peak Date

Dec 6, 2025

Released

November 21, 2025

Original Artist

Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth

"For Good" is a duet from the 2025 Wicked: For Good movie, performed by Cynthia Erivo as Elphaba and Ariana Grande as Glinda. The song is the climactic moment when the two witches reconcile and acknowledge the huge impact their friendship has had on each other's lives. Stephen Schwartz, who wrote the score and lyrics for the original 2003 Broadway Wicked musical, avoided writing "For Good" until the very end because he understood its crucial importance to the entire work. "I knew that it was the key to the show," he said in an interview on the musical's YouTube channel in May 2011, "and that if we solved this song, we had the show. And if we didn't solve the song, it didn't matter what else we did in the show." The song's title and core concept came from Schwartz' brainstorming session with Wicked playwright Winnie Holzman. While discussing the witches' knotty friendship, Holtznan observed that they had "changed each other for good." Schwartz seized on it, and the whole song rests on that double meaning: permanence and benevolence. Schwartz found further inspiration in a conversation with his daughter Jessica, when he asked her what she would say to a close childhood friend named Sarah if she knew she'd never see her again. Her answer, about people coming into our lives for a reason and helping us grow, became the blueprint for the opening verse. The composer decided to make "For Good" a duet so Elphaba and Glinda could tell each other what their friendship has meant as they say goodbye forever. Director Jon M. Chu uses the number in Wicked: For Good as the emotional centerpiece. The performance represents the culmination of Elphaba and Glinda's estrangement and final reconciliation, as an angry mob rises against the Wicked Witch. The moment completes their long arc from rivals to soul-shaping companions. Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande also performed "For Good" alongside the original Broadway icons - Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth - during the television special Wicked: One Wonderful Night on November 6, 2025. For the occasion, Schwartz composed new lyrics for the bridge and even sat in as pianist. For many, the definitive version remains the one on the original Broadway cast recording, where Menzel and Chenoweth first turned the song into the tear-duct-activating classic it is today. "For Good" has since been covered everywhere from Glee to cabaret bars, becoming one of musical theater's go-to duets.

[Elphaba:]
I'm limited

Just look at me
Not with your eyes, with theirs

I'm limited, and just look at you
You can do all I couldn't do, Glinda

Here, take it

[Glinda:]
What? But you know I, I can't read this, I—

[Elphaba:]
Well, you have to learn

Because now it's up to you
For both of us
Now it's up to you

[Glinda:]
I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But
Because I knew you
I have been changed for good

[Elphaba:]
It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine
By being my friend

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better? But
Because I knew you

[Glinda:]
Because I knew you

[Glinda & Elphaba:]
I have been changed for good

[Elphaba:]
And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

[Glinda:]
But then, I guess we know there's blame to share

[Glinda & Elphaba:]
And none of it seems to matter anymore

[Glinda (Elphaba):]
Like a comet pulled from orbit
(Like a ship blown from its mooring)
As it passes a sun
(By a wind off the sea)
Like a stream that meets a boulder
(Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood)
Halfway through the wood
(In the wood)

Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
I do believe I have been changed for the better

[Glinda:]
And because I knew you

[Elphaba:]
Because I knew you

[Glinda & Elphaba:]
Because I knew you
I have been changed
For good