Wednesday 30 May 2012

Eye of the tiger by Survivor


This classic rock song was released 30 years ago yesterday and was from an album of the same name.  The song will forever be synonymous with the Rocky movies, starring Sylvester Stallone and the track was actually specially written at the request of Sylvester for his forthcoming movie Rocky III (you know, the one with Mr T as the incredibly angry "Clubber" Lang).  Plot spoiler: Rocky takes him down!



The song was requested after Sylvester failed to get the rights to Queen's "Another One Bites The Dust".  I think Queen made a good choice as what he ended up with was more fitting.

The song was written by Frankie Sullivan and Jim Peterik, from the band Survivor. The bands other big hit was Burning Heart, from Rocky 4 (the one where he drops the Russian!), so both they and Sly Stallone have a lot to thank each other about as the songs definitely added to the movie and the band enjoyed great success with Eye Of The Tiger.


The song was amazingly successful and hit the number 1 spot in a number of countries including the UK and the USA (top spot for 6 weeks).  It won a Grammy award and was nominated for an Oscar.  The band never reached these heights again, but this will go down in history as one of the ll time 80's rock songs.

Here is  a great cover version.


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