"Eye of the Tiger" is a song performed by the American rock
band Survivor from the album
Eye of the Tiger, released in 1982. It was written at
the request of Sylvester Stallone for the film
Rocky III, as a replacement for Queen's "Another One
Bites the Dust" for which Stallone was unable to obtain
permission. The mix of the song heard in the film features
tiger growls, though these are omitted on the album and single
versions.
"Eye of the Tiger" topped the Hot 100 singles chart for six
weeks beginning July 24, 1982. The single was number two on the
BillboardTop Pop Singles of 1982 year-end chart and
number one on the Cash Box Top 100 Pop Singles year-end chart.
"Eye of the Tiger" also reached number one in the UK, Irish and
Australian charts. The single was certified platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America in 1982, representing
two million records sold in the U.S. Survivor won the Grammy
Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal
for "Eye of the Tiger". The song received an Academy Award
nomination for Best Original Song and was voted "Favorite Song"
by the People's Choice Awards (in a tie with "Truly" by Lionel
Richie).
In an interview with Songfacts, co-writer Jim Peterik
explained the song's title.
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.
The song was listed at #21 on
Billboard's All Time Top 100and was named the 63 best
hard rock song of all time by VH1.