anjali nova patel
speculative fiction writer
my semi-feral thoughts on this one song in Wicked
When I learned that yearn-master Jonathan Bailey of Bridgerton fame had been cast as Fiyero in 2022, I yelped.
Oh my god, I thought. He and Cynthia are going to blow the panties off of the audience during “As Long As You’re Mine.”
“As Long As You’re Mine” embodies yearning so exquisite it rewired my pubescent brain chemistry [1]. I first listened to the original cast recording in middle school, so you don’t have to dig deep to see why the reversal of Elphaba’s and Glinda’s roles from outcast to chosen respectively resonated at such a bizarre time of life. If “Wicked (Original Broadway Cast Recording)” is the soundtrack for the weird and the misunderstood, “As Long As You’re Mine” is the triumphant anthem for the newly chosen (who are slightly confused about how this all happened and are still in disbelief about it?). At certain moments, it has been my favorite song of the musical, to the point where I looked forward to the movie adaptation of Act II almost more than Act I. I have been waiting to see it on screen for so many years.
So when I tell you the depths of my disappointment in the onscreen adaptation were oceanic.
“Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight,” Elphaba sang while WALKING AWAY FROM FIYERO. NO. You have pined for this man since your college years, get your nails under his suspenders and pop some buttons off. Don’t put more clothes on! Where was the desperation? The heat? The desire?
In an Entertainment Weekly article, Jon Chu speaks of Elphaba walking away from Fiyero to create distance and give them “somewhere to go,” that she “wasn’t quite there yet.” Okay, I guess. But why not do that before the sexy love song starts? What was perhaps meant to come across as considering and restrained instead read as disinterested [2]. Starting with a lingering gaze, a quiver of the lip, the kinesis of proximity could have given us plenty of places to go. They had four minutes to make the most of it. What a waste.
And just for this moment / As long as you’re mine / I’ve lost all resistance / And crossed some border line
Elphaba, after being rejected by her father(s), sister, and best friend, is finally safe and wanted without complication. This moment is supposed to be her release, her false victory – our last gasp of fresh air before the one-two gut punch of a house crushing her sister and the Winky Guards crucifying Fiyero in a corn field for defending Elphaba. Elphaba tastes what could have been—what should be now—only to have it ripped away from her in the next song. “As Long As You’re Mine” tees us up to be bludgeoned by the devastation and injustice in Elphaba’s voice as she cries out Fiyero’s name in “No Good Deed.” [3]
There is, of course, the very understandable concern that what works on stage will not translate to the screen. Expectations for the screen are always higher because there is simply more that can be done. However. I do not buy that the quiescence of the stage version would have been a worse decision. Elphaba and Fiyero singing eye to eye, mouth to mouth, gripping each other like life rafts is so marvelously intimate in the theater that I believe Cynthia and Jonathan had the chops to bring that to the screen without it feeling corny or inert if they both fully committed to it. Passion does not need elaborate choreography. [4]
Wicked: For Good – The Soundtrack version #
No one asked (for any of this), but my thoughts on the movie soundtrack version: genuinely phenomenal. No notes. I melted into Cynthia’s and Jonathan’s vocals on repeat the entire train ride home from the movie. For twenty years, the smooth transition from Glinda’s disbelieving, final note of “I’m Not That Girl (reprise)” to Elphaba’s and Fiyero’s smoky, swoony love ballad has been cemented in my heart and my ears. It is a monumental order to replace something cemented by time and a specific period of life (particularly teen girlhood), but I have to say...the movie soundtrack version of “As Long As You’re Mine” might be my preferred version now (!!!).
It starts with hypnotic anticipation: a bass thrum. Eight slow beats of the heart, eight soft footfalls closing the distance between us and the opening chords from No One Mourns the Wicked, now revisited on the piano. That same heart beat carries us through Cynthia’s divine vocals until she drops out a minute and a half in. It’s only us and the instrumentals; a moment of self-consciousness, or hesitation, or an asking of permission. Then we get our answer: strings sweep us up and away and drums kick in like a quickening pulse that crescendo into Fiyero’s exultant: Maybe I’m brainless / Maybe I’m wise / But you’ve got me seeing through different eyes / Somehow I’ve fallen under your spell / And somehow I’m feeling it’s up that I fell.
Chef’s. Motherfucking. KISS.
I just wish what happened on screen could have matched the effectiveness of the soundtrack. If I were President of Wicked (too late), I would have made that entire scene twice as long and two hundred times as horny. But if they were so keen to keep their PG rating [5], it’s probably better for everyone that I’m not.[6]
Have you seen Ariana Grande’s interviews? None of us who grew up on Wicked know how to be normal about it. We’re freaks! ↩︎
The chemistry between Cynthia and Ariana was so insane that honestly…maybe this makes sense. Ultimately, I ship Elphaba / Glinda / Fiyero. Elphaba Thropp is just short for Elphaba Throuple. ↩︎
Oh but to be clear, Cynthia completely destroyed those vocals and I’m so happy she optioned up to the F5. ↩︎
This is the most heterosexual thing I have ever written and I promise it will never happen again. ↩︎
I had to find an npm package to install in order to use footnotes in this post, can you believe?? ↩︎