For Better or Worse (Reprise) Lyrics – Great Gatsby, The

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

1. Short reprise for Jordan and Nick - a dialogue-sung pivot where romance meets reality.
2. Comes late in the show, echoing an earlier number while darkening its promise.
3. Appears on the Original Broadway Cast album released digitally in June 2024.
4. Text frames commitment vows against the crumbling marriages around them.

The reprise trims away ornament and goes straight for the bruise. Where the earlier song floated, this one argues. You can hear Jason Howland shaping the harmony around conversational stress while Nathan Tysen pares the lyric to vows and doubts. The effect is intimate - a small light in a big, messy room.

Creation History

Written for the production's Broadway run, the reprise functions as a character checkpoint for Nick and Jordan. The staging usually keeps them close - little choreography, plenty of subtext - which lets the audience read flinch and hesitation. According to Playbill coverage, the album was rolled out by Masterworks Broadway in late June 2024, bundling the reprise with the full sequence of numbers from the show.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

Jordan, stung by what she has witnessed, questions the institution outright. Nick counters with a soft insistence that theirs can be different. The reprise lands between wish and warning: two people trying to define a private promise while surrounded by public wreckage.

Song Meaning

The piece frames marriage as narrative pressure. Jordan names the pattern - vows that curdle - and Nick tries to rescue the idea by narrowing it to "us." It is a micro-argument about agency: do we repeat the script, or write our own? The mood is tender but wary, and the music keeps the pulse subdued so the words can do the work.

Annotations

How can anyone wanna get married after seeing what all it turns into?

A direct glance at Tom and Daisy's arrangement - wealth without trust. The line also sketches Jordan's fear of being slotted into a prewritten role she cannot control. In the show’s arc, it shades her choice to step back from Nick.

But don’t you think that every newlywed believes their marriage will endure?

That's the cinched thesis: optimism as tradition. Jordan's cynicism is earned by the scenes she just survived, and the reprise lets that realism speak without turning her into a scold.

Style and subtext

The reprise uses a near-recitative delivery: clipped phrases, careful breath, minimal melisma. That restraint reads like two people trying not to spook each other. The emotional arc runs from defensive - Jordan poking holes in the fairy tale - to fragile - the pair testing whether belief can beat precedent. Culturally, the lyric borrows the language of the wedding rite and places it under theatrical light, asking who gets to define "for better" once the party ends.

Key Facts

• Artist: Original Broadway Cast of The Great Gatsby - A New Musical
• Featured voices: Jordan and Nick
• Composer: Jason Howland
• Lyricist: Nathan Tysen
• Album: The Great Gatsby - A New Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
• Release Date (digital album): June 2024
• Label: Masterworks Broadway
• Type: Reprise of earlier duet theme
• Music style: Theatrical pop with intimate, dialogic phrasing
• Language: English

Canonical Entities & Relations

• Jason Howland - composed the score for the Broadway production.
• Nathan Tysen - wrote the lyrics for the Broadway production.
• Kait Kerrigan - wrote the book for the stage musical.
• Masterworks Broadway - released the Original Broadway Cast album.
• Nick Carraway - character who counters Jordan with a belief in a different kind of marriage.
• Jordan Baker - character whose realism challenges the vow language.

Questions and Answers

Where does this reprise sit in the show?

Late in the running order, after the plot exposes the rot inside the marriages around the leads.

How does the reprise differ from the earlier song?

Shorter, sparer, and more argumentative - it trades lush romance for plain talk and doubt.

Who leads the vocal line?

Jordan initiates with a spoken challenge before shifting to sung phrases; Nick answers in spoken interjections that tilt toward reassurance.

Why reuse the vow language?

To interrogate ritual. By echoing familiar vows, the lyric asks whether tradition protects love or traps it.

What performance choices help it land?

Naturalistic diction, close physical staging, and breaths that feel like thought - keep it human-sized.

Is there foreshadowing?

Yes. Jordan's skepticism reads as a red flag for any fantasy that money solves commitment.

Does the reprise resolve the argument?

Not fully. It leaves the door open, which fits the show's broader view of promises under pressure.

Awards and Chart Positions

The production housing this track won Best Costume Design of a Musical at the 2024 Tony Awards for Linda Cho. The album was issued under Masterworks Broadway during the show's spring 2024 Broadway run. No individual chart entries for the reprise were published on major singles charts.

Additional Info

Album rollout: Sony's Masterworks Broadway announced the cast album in April 2024 with a staggered release - digital first, physical later. As stated by Playbill at the time, that strategy aligned with how new Broadway recordings build momentum while a show is hot.

Ongoing life: the show continued into the 2024-25 season, with cast changes and fresh promotion. People magazine later highlighted a studio video tying the score's "green light" motif to pop counterparts - a savvy bit of cross-referencing that kept the album cuts in circulation.

Sources

1. Masterworks Broadway announcement
2. Playbill reporting on the album release
3. Tony Awards records for the production
4. People magazine coverage of the show's continuing run
5. Official streaming listings for the track and album