In 1982, Survivor had their first No. 1 single with “Eye Of The Tiger”. The song was written by band members Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan. “Eye Of The Tiger” is the title track of Survivor’s third studio album. It also appears in the film Rocky III, starring Sylvester Stallone. An integral part of the film, Peterik and Sullivan wrote “Eye Of The Tiger”. Still, they owe the song in part to Queen’s 1980 hit single, “Another One Bites The Dust”.
Stallone personally reached out to Peterik and Sullivan, asking them to write something for Rocky III. But when the songwriters were sent the movie, the Queen song was where “Eye Of The Tiger” ended up being placed.
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“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,” Peterik recalls. “Frankie and I are watching this. The punches are being thrown, and we’re going, ‘Holy crap, this is working like a charm.’”
The writers called Stallone to ask why Queen’s song wasn’t in the film. But fortunately for Survivor, Queen would not give up publishing rights to the song, making way for Survivor instead.
“Frankie and I looked at each other and went, ‘Man, this is going to be tough to beat,’” Peterik recounts. “We had the spirit of, ‘We’ve got to try to top this.’ I started doing that now-famous dead string guitar riff and started slashing those chords to the punches we saw on the screen, and the whole song took shape in the next three days.”
How Jim Peterik and Frank Sullivan Wrote “Eye Of The Tiger” for Survivor
“Eye Of The Tiger” says in part, “Rising 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 … 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.”
Peterik credits Sullivan with coming up with the lines that helped flesh out the entire song.
“Frankie came in with the lines, ‘Back on the street, doin’ time, taking chances,” Peterik says. “I loved those lines immediately, and suggested, ‘Rising up, back on the street, did my time, took my chances,’ to make it fit with the storyline. And to make the rhythm of the words fit the music I was hearing in my head. That was certainly the lyrical spark that got the song started.”
For two hours, Peterik and Sullivan wrote, getting everything recorded on cassette.
“At the end of the day, the music was about 80 percent complete. And the lyric about 30 percent,” Peterik says. “Over the next few days, I worked hard on the lyrics, remembering pieces of movie dialogue like, ‘Went the distance,’ referring to the central phrase of the first Rocky movie.”
Interestingly, Peter reveals the song was almost called “Survival” instead.
Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns