It's All Up To Lady Luck! Lyrics
It's All Up To Lady Luck!
Buck:In poker she's the one who helps you draw an inside straight.
Conchita:
Or cause the horse your betting on to never leave the gate.
Sherrif Toady:
In blackjack she decides if you get twenty-one or bust.
All Three:
She's surely not the type f dame that you would want to trust.
It's all up to Lady Luck. It's all up to Lady Luck.
Cause she's the one who's choosing if you're winning or you're loosing.
It's all up to Lady Luck.
Buck:
One minute Lady Luck is with you then she's skipping town.
Conchita:
One day she's got you riding high and than she drops you down.
Sherrif Toady:
Sometimes she let's you win so much your pockets overflow.
All Three:
But just as fast as you can get it she can make it go.
It's all up to Lady Luck. It's all up to Lady Luck.
When she is on your side just tell the dealer, "Let it ride!" It's all up to Lady Luck.
Don Alfredo:
In gambling I don't got no choice,
I guess that I am stuck with that two timing, double dealing gal called Lady Luck.
I don't know if her luck is good or bad, but what the heck?
Why don't we get it over with? Come on, let's cut the deck!
All:
It's all up to Lady Luck. It's all up to Lady Luck.
Don Alfredo:
Will she decide to smile on me?
Or in a little while will I be left alone to wallow in the muck? It's all up-
All:
It's all up to Lady Luck!
Song Overview
Song: "It's All Up To Lady Luck!"
From: "Alas! Alack! Zorro's Back!" (stage musical melodrama)
Some shows run on destiny. This one runs on rigged systems and loud audience judgment. "It's All Up To Lady Luck!" is the musical's little sermon about chance, delivered with a gambler's grin. In a town where Buck Badum owns the hotel, the bank, and the badge, the idea of "luck" is already a joke - a useful joke for people in power, and a nervous joke for everyone else.
Review and Highlights
Quick summary
- Function in the show: A rules-of-the-world number, teasing how easily winners get crowned and losers get blamed.
- Where it lands: Early-to-mid show, when schemes and identity games start tightening around the town.
- Stage tone: Comic melodrama, designed for audience reaction and broad character choices.
- Likely performer: A villain, an emcee-type, or an ensemble feature, depending on staging (the piece plays well as a "let me explain how this place works" turn).
The title promises a shrug, but the song is usually sharper than a shrug. "Lady Luck" is treated as an agent - a character you can flatter, blame, or bargain with. In melodrama, that is a gift: it turns abstract fate into something you can point at. And because the show encourages open cheering and booing, a number about "luck" becomes a theatrical dodge the audience can read instantly. According to Windy City Times, at least one notable production leaned hard into participatory melodrama etiquette, which makes a philosophy-of-the-town song land like a wink shared with the house.
Key Takeaways
- Best played with crisp diction and a steady pulse, so the punch lines do not blur.
- Works as social satire: "luck" sounds neutral until you notice who gets to define it.
- Pairs neatly with the show’s spoof-score habits, where familiar musical gestures get repurposed for comedy.
Creation History
"Alas! Alack! Zorro's Back!" is credited to playwright Tim Kelly, with music and lyrics by David Reiser, and is circulated for performance licensing by Pioneer Drama Service. As stated in Theatre In Chicago's show description and review roundup, the piece was staged as a populist comedy-drama where stock heroes and villains are played big, and the score enjoys its own parody impulses.
Song Meaning and Annotations
Plot
In "Old New Mexico," Buck Badum and Sheriff Toady keep the town under a thumb, while Conchita helps run the deception. Alice Sweepup is trapped in the local machinery. Henry arrives with Aunt Victoria and a deed meant to help Alice, and the villains counter with impersonation and false identity, pushing the town toward chaos until the Zorro persona slices the knot in the final rescue.
Song Meaning
The number argues that outcomes are not earned, they are granted - and then rebranded as "luck." That idea is funny on the surface, but it also prepares the audience to distrust official stories inside the plot: who is "deserving," who is "respectable," who is "successful." In a community where ownership and law sit in the same hands, "Lady Luck" becomes a mask villains can wear and a superstition the powerless cling to. The song's emotional arc is a sly climb: it starts like a party mantra, then edges toward something closer to warning.
Annotations
"Cause she's the one who's choosing if you're winning or you're losing."
That couplet is a compact thesis statement: the song personifies chance as a chooser. In performance, the "choosing" word can be tossed like a punch line, or stressed like a threat. Either way, it nudges the audience to hear "luck" as something suspiciously selective.
Style and rhythm
Listen for the song's bounce: short phrases, repeated stresses, and a forward-driving rhythm that suits a patter-adjacent delivery. It is built for clarity, because the joke needs to read in the back row. If your production plays the score as parody-friendly, this is one of the spots where a knowing musical gesture can underline the satire without stopping the story.
Technical Information (Quick Facts)
- Song: "It's All Up To Lady Luck!"
- Work: "Alas! Alack! Zorro's Back!"
- Artist: Stage character performance (varies by production)
- Composer: David Reiser
- Lyricist: David Reiser
- Book: Tim Kelly
- Release Date: 1995 (stage work production era noted in listings and reviews)
- Genre: Musical; melodrama spoof
- Language: English
- Label: Not applicable (performance-licensed stage work)
- Publisher: Pioneer Drama Service
- Mood: Sardonic; buoyant; cautionary
- Instruments: Varies by production (often small pit or combo)
- Album: No widely documented commercial cast album
- Poetic meter: Mixed meter with repeated stresses (patter-friendly phrasing)
Frequently Asked Questions
- Who performs this song in the musical?
- Many stagings can assign it flexibly: a villain, an emcee-like figure, or an ensemble feature. The song reads as a public statement about how the town works.
- What is the song trying to say about "luck"?
- That "luck" is often a cover story. Someone benefits, someone loses, and the winners would rather call it fate than admit the system is fixed.
- Is it a comic number or a serious one?
- It is comic in surface delivery, but it points a finger. The laugh comes with an edge, which suits this show's habit of mixing spoof and stakes.
- How does it support the Zorro storyline?
- It frames the conflict: if the town has been trained to accept unfair outcomes as "just luck," Zorro's job is to break that habit in public.
- Does the musical encourage audience participation?
- Yes. Reviews of notable productions describe a boo-and-cheer environment, sometimes with playful audience permission to react loudly to villains.
- Is there a commercial cast recording for the show?
- No widely documented commercial cast album is consistently cited across major listings for this title.
- What performance choice makes the song land?
- Treat the lyric as an argument, not wallpaper: make each setup clear, then let the punch line land cleanly before rushing the next phrase.
- Is this song connected to film or TV uses?
- No reliable soundtrack trail is commonly cited for this stage-work number.
Additional Info
A nice, stage-practical detail: the title works as acting instruction. "Lady Luck" invites a gesture, a glance upward, a conspiratorial aside, or even a mock prayer. In melodrama, those choices are not decoration, they are grammar. As stated in Theatre In Chicago's listing, the show is framed as comedy-drama and leans on recognizable stock characters, so a number that argues with fate fits the style like a glove.
Key Contributors
| Entity | Type | Relationship | Statement (S-V-O) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tim Kelly | Person | Playwright (book) | Tim Kelly wrote the book for "Alas! Alack! Zorro's Back!". |
| David Reiser | Person | Composer and lyricist | David Reiser composed the music and wrote the lyrics for the musical. |
| Pioneer Drama Service | Organization | Publisher / licensing | Pioneer Drama Service publishes and licenses the musical for productions. |
| Quest Theatre Ensemble | Organization | Producing company (notable staging) | Quest Theatre Ensemble staged the musical in Chicago in 2009. |
| Buck Badum | Fictional character | Antagonist | Buck Badum controls the town and uses deception to protect his power. |
| Sheriff Toady | Fictional character | Corrupt law | Sheriff Toady enforces Buck Badum's control over the town. |
| Zorro (stage persona) | Fictional persona | Hero figure | Zorro disrupts the town's fixed outcomes and restores justice. |
Sources
Sources: Windy City Times theatre review (Quest Theatre Ensemble, 2009), Theatre In Chicago listing and review roundup, TalkinBroadway Chicago listing, PlayDatabase play entry (song list), OneLook verse index snippet