Remembering When an Alan Parsons Project Instrumental Became an NBA Arena Anthem in 1984

When you write a song, you just can never tell what it’s going to do once it gets out into the world. It can have the most modest intentions behind it, to the point where the writer might have put it out of their mind moments after its completion. And it can still end up affecting millions.

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Alan Parsons knows this phenomenon well. The mastermind behind The Alan Parsons Project wrote a bite-sized instrumental that was necessary only to serve as an introduction to a full song. Little did he know that Michael Jordan would make that instrumental legendary.

Before “Eye”

In 1980, Alan Parsons finally gave Eric Woolfson, his longtime co-writer in The Alan Parsons Project, the chance to sing some of the songs that he helped to write. The move paid off when “Time”, an ethereal ballad sung by Woolfson, became the band’s biggest pop hit to that point.

Going back to the well, Parsons once again handed off lead vocal duties to Woolford for “Eye In The Sky”, lead single and title track to the band’s next album in 1982. Parsons thought the song would lead off the album well. But he felt it sounded odd just starting cold. That’s when he decided he needed an intro, which led to “Sirius”.

An Important Fan

Using a Fairlight synthesizer to sample a clavichord, Alan Parsons came up with a piece of music that slowly builds in intensity before maxing out with some crashing crescendos and a brief guitar solo. “Sirius” lasts a little less than two minutes before segueing into “Eye In The Sky”.

When radio stations played “Eye In The Sky”, which became another big hit for the band, they chopped off “Sirius”. But album listeners knew of the song. One of those listeners was Tommy Davis, who worked as the public address announcer for the Chicago Bulls of the NBA.

Davis had been tinkering with using music to spice up the introductions of the home team’s starting lineup at the beginning of each game. When he heard “Sirius” one day in a movie theater waiting for the feature to begin, he thought it would be the perfect musical accompaniment for that purpose.

Arena Rock

Davis started using “Sirius” at Bulls home games in 1984. That also happened to be the rookie season for Michael Jordan in Chicago. As anyone with even a passing knowledge of the game can tell you, Jordan would go on to become arguably the greatest player in league history, winning six championships with the team in the 90s.

Because of that, Alan Parsons’ little instrumental received a ton of exposure. Every time the Bulls played on television, people would get a look at the intros and hear “Sirius”. The song soon made its way into other sports arenas as well.

Alas, Alan Parsons wasn’t asked for permission for “Sirius” to be used, nor was he compensated for it. In the better-late-than-never department, he did get a bit of a monetary boost when the song was used in The Last Dance, the 2020 multipart documentary about Jordan and the Bulls.

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