Songfacts®:

• Written by Fred Ebb and John Kander, the musical-theater team who scored the Broadway smash Cabaret, this is the sole single from the Funny Lady soundtrack. The 1975 movie is the sequel to the 1968 film Funny Girl, a fictionalized chronicle of Fanny Brice's (Barbra Streisand) rise to fame in the Ziegfeld Follies and her love affair with gambler Nicky Arnstein. After learning that Arnstein has remarried, the crushed singer belts out "How Lucky Can You Get," an ironic toast to her charmed life.
• Although Streisand earned an Academy Award for playing Brice in Funny Girl, she had no interest in stepping back into the role for the sequel, but she still owed producer Ray Stark one more film to fulfill her contract. She starred opposite James Caan as Billy Rose, the brash producer that Brice married after her marriage to Arnstein failed. The film was a hit at the box office but tanked with critics, who offered little praise beyond Streisand's singing performance.
• This was nominated for Best Original Song at the 1975 Golden Globe Awards and the 1976 Academy Awards but lost both prizes to Keith Carradine's "I'm Easy" from the movie Nashville.
• The song peaked at #27 on the US Adult Contemporary Chart. It was Streisand's 30th single to reach the Top 30 on the tally.
• This was produced by Peter Matz, Streisand's musical director on her early albums (he won a Grammy Award for his work on People), who also composed the film score. He also earned an Academy Award nomination in the Original Song Score and Adaptation category but lost to Leonard Rosenman for Barry Lyndon.
• The soundtrack was one of the first releases from Clive Davis' newly formed Arista Records. Davis previously worked at Columbia Records, Streisand's label, and was instrumental in contemporizing her sound on albums like Stoney End.