One Short Day Lyrics – Wicked

Song Overview

Song Credits

• Featured: Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel (with the Original Broadway Company of Wicked)
• Producer: Stephen Schwartz
• Composer/Lyricist: Stephen Schwartz
• Release Date: December 16, 2003
• Genre: Showtunes, Broadway, Symphonic Pop
• Length: 3 min 03 sec
• Label: Decca Broadway / Universal Music
• Mood: Jubilant, wide-eyed, celebratory
• Instruments (principal): full pit orchestra — strings, French horns, trumpets, trombones, woodwinds, harp, guitar, piano, synthesizer, bass, drums, auxiliary percussion
• Track #: 9 on Wicked (Original Broadway Cast Recording)
• Language: English (official German, Spanish and Portuguese adaptations exist)
• Poetic meter: Predominantly anapestic with playful internal rhymes
• Copyrights: © 2003 Wonderland Music Company, Inc. (ASCAP)

Song Meaning and Annotations

“One Short Day” is that postcard-perfect rush you feel when a new city unfurls at your feet. Schwartz marries a syncopated two-step pulse with bright brass flourishes, letting Elphaba’s driven alto and Glinda’s glittering soprano weave through the ensemble like two tourists pointing at opposite sides of the street. The song launches in medias res — no overture, no preamble — mirroring the characters’ sensory overload as they barrel into the Emerald City.

Musically it pivots between Broadway swing and almost filmic underscore: lush strings underline the sweeping vistas, while a staccato drum-kit keeps things grounded, as if the girls are literally pounding the pavement. Emotionally the arc is simple yet potent: awe morphs into ambition, which then flips into a cheeky civic pride chant at “Wizomania.” Cultural nods abound; the tourist-brochure refrain recalls “New York, New York,” while the green-coded imagery hints at 1939’s Technicolor Oz film.

The 2024 film adaptation expands this number into a neon parade, adding cameos from Chenoweth and Menzel themselves and turning Wizomania into a propaganda spectacular. That meta-layer — the original Glinda and Elphaba blessing their successors — adds poignancy for long-time fans.

“One short day in the Emerald City / One short day full of so much to do.”

The repetition hammers home impermanence — a single day must somehow hold a lifetime’s worth of dreams.

Verse 1

Elphaba’s wide-eyed catalogue of sights (“buildings as tall as Quoxwood trees”) is grounded in nature metaphors. She measures architecture against forests, hinting she still thinks like an outsider from rural Munchkinland.

Chorus

The ensemble joins, turning personal wonder into communal anthem — a sonic selfie. Schwartz modulates up a step, literally raising expectations.

Wizomania Bridge

The inner rhyme “mage whose major itinerary is making all Oz merrier” is a linguistic carnival, but also soft propaganda: wordplay distracts from the Wizard’s flimsy creds.

This moment marks a clear departure from L. Frank Baum’s original portrayal of the Wizard and his mystique. In Baum’s version, the Wizard is a shadowy figure — no one truly knows who he is or what he looks like until Dorothy and her friends peel back the illusion. He hides behind theatrics, smoke, and mirrors — the infamous curtain masking a very ordinary man.

But here, things are flipped. The Wizomania dancers wear exaggerated masks of the Wizard’s actual face, suggesting not only familiarity but also a kind of propaganda — the face isn’t hidden, it’s plastered everywhere. Rather than mystery, he’s a spectacle, a celebrity.

Even more striking, the backstory of his arrival — the hot-air balloon ride into Oz — is already public knowledge. In Baum’s novel, that revelation doesn’t come until much later, when the Wizard tries to help Dorothy return home. It’s a private confession. But in this adaptation, that truth is normalized, almost mythologized, and everyone seems to know it.

*beat of theatrical irony* What was once a guarded secret has become a shared legend — and in that, the Wizard loses both his enigma and, arguably, his power.

Finale Tag

“The Wizard will see you now!” slams the brakes. Fun over — the girls’ idealism is about to collide with political reality, foreshadowing Act II’s moral fractures.

Similar Songs

1. “Consider Yourself” — Oliver! Cast (1960)
   Both pieces welcome outsiders into a bustling metropolis. Where “One Short Day” salutes Oz’s emerald avenues, “Consider Yourself” paints a scrappy Dickensian London. Each chorus relies on call-and-response harmony, but “Day” tilts toward swing-pop sheen while Lionel Bart leans music-hall. Still, the invite-everyone ethos links them.
2. “Good Morning Baltimore” — Hairspray (2002)
   Tracy Turnblad’s dawn anthem mirrors Glinda’s giddy civic love. Both heroines map their streets through personal aspiration — Tracy chasing TV glory, Glinda craving society’s embrace. Instrumentally, brass blasts and walking-bass lines conjure optimism in stereo.
3. “Another Day of Sun” — La La Land Cast (2016)
   Damien Chazelle channels classic MGM spectacle; Schwartz predates it but shares the same gin-fizz energy. Both songs deploy ensemble traffic-jam choreography and key changes that mirror shifting camera angles, celebrating possibility even as they hint at looming disillusion.

Questions and Answers

Why didn’t “One Short Day” chart as a single?

The Broadway album predates the streaming era and was marketed as a full cast recording, so individual tracks weren’t pushed to radio. Its popularity lives in ticket sales and, later, soundtrack streams.

Is the song different in the 2024 film?

Yes — new orchestrations add cinematic percussion, and Cynthia Erivo/Ariana Grande trade ad-libs while Menzel and Chenoweth cameo during Wizomania.

What does “hoi polloi” signal in Glinda’s lyric?

It reveals her class obsession. She wants to join elite circles yet calls them “hoi polloi,” mixing highbrow Greek with mild disdain, comedic irony.

Are there non-English versions?

German (“Nur ein Tag”), Spanish (“La Ciudad Esmeralda”) and Portuguese (“Venha Ver”) cast albums adapt the lines faithfully, adjusting internal rhymes to local idioms.

Who plays the trumpet glissando in the original pit?

Jon Owens, one of two trumpet players credited on the 2003 session.

Awards and Chart Positions

The Wicked cast album won the 2005 Grammy for Best Musical Show Album and reached a new Billboard 200 peak of #33 in November 2024. It attained RIAA platinum in 2006, double platinum in 2010 and triple platinum in 2022.

Fan and Media Reactions

“Wow, amazing voices…” Past-Afternoon1657, Reddit

“The camera shake hurts me.” LadyKT, Reddit

“Their voices really do blend together in a special way!” who_says_poTAHto, Reddit

“Vanity Fair calls the Wizomania sequence ‘a neon propaganda spectacular.’” Vanity Fair

“Hearing Menzel pop up in the film version gave me chills!” Fan tweet captured by Chart Data