On this day (July 24) in 1982, Survivor started a six-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Eye of the Tiger” from the Rocky III soundtrack. After the song appeared in the biggest movie of the year, the relatively unknown band skyrocketed to stardom.
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Director and star Sylvester Stallone originally wanted to use “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen in Rocky III. The film’s editor had already built the opening sequence around the song’s staccato guitar riff. Then, Queen declined the request to use the movie. Scrambling to find a high-energy track for the opening credits and other key scenes in the movie, Stallone reached out to the Chicago-based band Survivor. They didn’t have anything that would fit. So, they watched a rough cut of the movie and wrote “Eye of the Tiger.”
Survivor Recall Writing “Eye of the Tiger” for Rocky III
Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan of Survivor co-wrote “Eye of the Tiger.” Peternik recalled how they put the song together in an interview with Songfacts.
“When we got the initial rough cut of the movie, the scene that ‘Eye of the Tiger’ appears in was cut to ‘Another One Bites the Dust’ by Queen. Frankie and I are watching this, the punches are being thrown, and we’re going, ‘Holy crap, this is working like a charm,’” he recalled. “We called Stallone and said, ‘Why aren’t you using this?’ He goes, ‘Well, we can’t get the publishing rights to it.’ Frankie and I looked at each other and went, ‘Man, this is going to be tough to beat.’ We had the spirit of, ‘We’ve got to top this.’ I started to that now-famous dead string guitar riff and started slashing those chords to the punches we say on the screen, and the whole song took shape in the next three days,” he added.
“Eye of the Tiger” was a massively successful single for Survivor. It spent six weeks at No. 1 and 15 weeks in the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was also No. 1 in the United Kingdom for four consecutive weeks. The Platinum-certified single won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group at the Grammy Awards. It also brought the band an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.
Featured Image by Paul Natkin/Getty Images
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