Key: D major

Time Signature: 4/4

Theme: Empowerment

Defying Gravity is the final song of the first act of Wicked. The song is sung when Elphaba discovers that the Wizard of Oz is not the heroic figure she had originally believed him to be. Elphaba vows to do everything in her power to fight the Wizard and his sinister plans. She sings of how she wants to live without limits, going against the rules that others have set for her.

The main parts of the song are in D major but in other parts of the song, the tonality is less settled, featuring chromatic writing and sudden changes of key. The numerous tempo changes help to separate the sections of the song and create emotion.

Schwartz uses leitmotifs throughout the musical; leitmotifs are used to help unify the work and as a simple reminder of things witnessed earlier, rather like musical labels. For example, when Galinda (later called Glinda) reassures Elphaba that she can still be with the wizard (bars 234–252) she quotes the motif sung by Elphaba in The Wizard and I, near the start of the show. Where the word "unlimited" is used in Defying Gravity, the melody is taken from Somewhere Over the Rainbow from the original Wizard of Oz film.

Defying Gravity features a lot of spoken dialogue to blend the song into the musical and to make certain words and phrases stand out.