Reflection on a Lyric (and the character who sang it)

"The Lord above gave man an arm of iron

So he could do his job and never shirk.

The Lord gave man an arm of iron, but

With a little bit o' luck,

With a little bit o' luck,

Someone else'll do the blinkin' work!"

 The above stanza is from the musical "My Fair Lady" written by Alan Jay Lerner (music Frederick Loewe), derived from the work "Pygmalion" by George Bernard Shaw.

The filmed version featured veteran British character actor Stanley Holloway cast as Liza Doolittle's shiftless, working class father Alfred.  Alfred is the epitome of every working class stereotype, he's dirty (literally), opportunistic, lazy.  What makes him happiest is hanging out at the pub, drinking a beer someone else paid for, hating the rich, but not caring to improve his or his family's lot.  Indeed for most of the show, Alfred is happy in his lower tier lifestyle.  Then near the end, he appears again, a rich prosperous man (with a strong assist from fate & Prof. Higgins), and as irony would have it, he's unhappy.  Now he's the one expected to buy beer, he's the one who must get married, he can no longer complain about the rich. Although I can't be sure, I'd wager that when "My Fair Lady" came out back in the early 60s, "With a Little Bit of Luck" must have become a very popular "pub song" in the UK.

Although this character, especially as played by Holloway, was show-stoppingly funny, the message in the lyric (not just the above stanza, but indeed the whole song) feels bizarrely out of sync with our current employment and career achivement challenges.  I guess that's what makes irony so interesting.  No?