eye of the tiger

Survivor went the distance with the anthemic theme from 'Rocky III'.  'Eye of the Tiger' was written by guitarist Frankie Sullivan and singer and keyboard player Jim Peterik.  Sullivan produced the single: "The president of our record company was friends with Stallone. They were really good friends. He had the Queen song 'Another One Bites The Dust' and Stallone wasn't happy with it. So he said 'Well you know, I have this band…' It was just two social guys having dinner. That's what started it all.  I remember Jim Peterik had pneumonia at the time so I went out alone and spent ten days working with Stallone and it was just a blast. He was totally cool. He just wanted it to slam. He wanted it to sound just like the demo but with balls. So I played it for him and took it to the limit and he loved it. And afterwards I remember seeing it in the movie theater and thinking to myself, 'Man, this sounds raw, it sounds rock. It sounds basic.' There are a lot of cool things about it. It sounds like it was on the spot. You can hear a lot of spontaneity in it."

Peterik says:  "Stallone has a good ear for a hook. Just listen to his dialogues - he wrote those scripts. He came up with 'Eye Of The Tiger' for that script and those hook phrases like 'I'm going to knock you into tomorrow.' All that stuff is Stallone, he's a genius with dialogue. Songs are nothing more than dialogue set to music as far as I'm concerned...At first, we wondered if calling it 'Eye of the Tiger' was too obvious. The initial draft of the song, we started with 'It's the eye of the tiger, it's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the spirit of our rival, and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and it all comes down to survival.' We were going to call the song 'Survival.' In the rhyme scheme, you can tell we had set up 'rival' to rhyme with 'survival.' At the end of the day, we said, 'Are we nuts?' That hook is so strong, and 'rival' doesn't have to be a perfect rhyme with the word 'tiger.' We made the right choice and went with 'Eye Of The Tiger'."

'Eye of the Tiger' was a worldwide smash, going to sixty-two in France; thirteen in Germany; six in Switzerland; five in Sweden; four in New Zealand; three in Italy; two in Austria and the Netherlands; and number one Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, Norway, the UK, and the US.  It won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance, was voted Best New Song by the People's Choice Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award.  






http://www.survivorband.com/












Risin' up back on the street 
Did my time, took my chances 
Went the distance now I'm back on my feet 
Just a man and his will to survive 
So many times, it happens too fast 
You trade your passion for glory 
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past 
You must fight just to keep them alive 

It's the Eye of the Tiger 
It's the thrill of the fight 
Rising up to the challenge of our rival 
And the last known survivor 
Stalks his prey in the night 
And he's watching us all 
With the Eye of the Tiger 

Face to face, out in the heat 
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry 
They stack the odds till' we take to the street 
For we kill with the skill to survive 
It's the Eye of the Tiger 
It's the thrill of the fight 
Rising up to the challenge of our rival 
And the last known survivor 
Stalks his prey in the night 
And he's watching us all 
With the Eye of the Tiger 

Risin' up straight to the top 
Had the guts, got the glory 
Went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop 
Just a man and his will to survive 

It's the Eye of the Tiger 
It's the thrill of the fight 
Rising up to the challenge of our rival 
And the last known survivor 
Stalks his prey in the night 
And he's watching us all 
With the Eye of the Tiger 

The Eye of the Tiger 
The Eye of the Tiger 
The Eye of the Tiger 
The Eye of the Tiger