Behind The Song:
Eye Of The Tiger

Without a doubt, the question I get asked most frequently regarding my musical career is, "How did you get that song in that Rocky movie?" (Actually, just edging out that question is "When you write a song, which comes first, the words or the music?") So I thought I'd address that issue once and for all (for all those who log onto my web site at any rate).

Those of you who have seen an Ides of March show are familiar with the story I tell before we do "Eye of the Tiger" and though I embellish it a bit as the spirit moves me, it is the truth as I remember it.

I was living at my old house in LaGrange, IL in 1981, and I came home from some errands and decided to check my message machine. Answering machines were still something of a novelty back then and to see that blinking light was a thrill. When I pressed the playback button I heard "Hey, yo, Jim, that's a nice message you got there. This is Sylvester Stallone. Give me a call at 213….. click." Well it sure sounded like the Stallone I heard in the Rocky movies and numerous appearances on The Tonight Show, but why was he calling me, and couldn't it be just someone playing a joke? Like maybe my songwriting partner in Survivor, Frankie Sullivan. So I called him up, and guess what, he received a similar message on his machine. We decided to take it seriously - glad we did!

Frankie came over to my house and we called the magic number and listened on separate phones. Sure enough, it was Stallone who answered. He told us right off to call him "Sly" as most of his close friends did, thus putting us at ease immediately. He said he had gotten our numbers from his good friend Tony Scotti who happened to be the president of Survivor's record label, Scotti Bros. Tony had played him some of our latest album, PREMONITON, and Stallone felt that our sound, writing style and street appeal could fit in his new movie.

We listened breathlessly as he told us about ROCKY III which he had just completed. He said he was using what he called "temp", or temporary music in the film thus far, but that he wanted to replace it with originals written specifically for the movie. He described the opening montage sequence where Rocky Balboa is shown resting on his laurels, living the good life, doing American Express commercials and photo-ops and slacking off his training regimen. In stark contrast were scenes of the ominous Mr. T, training hard, sweating, bleeding and pouring out every last ounce of effort to become the boxing champion of the world.

Stallone outlined a story about a Rocky who had lost his edge, his hunger, the "eye of the tiger", and his quest to get it back. He wanted the music to have a strong pulse, a lot of energy and plenty of dynamics - and he wanted it "street". He would be sending us a video cassette of the first 3-4 minutes of the film so that we could get started. I was standing there pinching myself, but I think I managed to say something like, "No problem - we'll get right on it." I remember slapping Frankie "five" when we hung up the phone knowing that if we came up to the line, that this could be the springboard to the top that Survivor had been looking for since we formed in 1978.

The day the video was to arrive we went out and rented a VCR. At this time BETA was the popular format for the relatively few people who could afford one and had the room to house this behemoth. When the package arrived we ripped it open and watched it on the machine we had set up on my kitchen counter. We were immediately knocked out by the power of the quick-cut visuals. We were also struck with how well the action worked with the temp music they had supplied - "Another One Bites The Dust" by Queen. I remember shaking my head and saying, "How are we ever going to beat that one?" But as we walked into my piano room I started singing the dead-string guitar figure that became one of the song's signatures. As I sat down at the grand piano Frankie plugged in and started playing that lick on guitar as I found a C-minor on the piano. We jammed on that feeling for a while and where enjoying the groove and energy but we soon realized that in order to get any further we had to see the rest of the movie. When we called "Sly" back, he told us the studio didn't want any copies going out for security reasons but finally agreed to send us one, on the condition that we return it the next day.

A few days later Frankie and I reconvened to watch the movie in it's entirety. That's when things really got cooking. Hearing the dialogue and feeling the vibe really did help us get to the next step. Throughout the film we where hearing Rocky's trainer talk about keeping "the eye of the tiger". It was, to us, the central theme of the movie. I told Frank that we'd be nuts if we didn't call the song "Eye of the Tiger".

The next day we got together to try to write the song. Frankie came in with the lines, "Back on the street, doin' time, taking chances". 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 story line 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. The next two hours flew by in a flash as we jammed, cassette recorder running non-stop to catch anything good we did for future reference, and at the end of the day, the music was about 80% complete and the lyric about 30%.

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. At first I was ending the chorus with the word, "survival". If you listen to the rhyme scheme, I set up the word "rival" in the chorus' third line to rhyme with "survival', but I soon realized that regardless of the rhyme scheme, we should begin and end the chorus with the phrase, "Eye of the Tiger".

At the next writing session we fine tuned the lyric and music and made plans to round up the band to demo the song. We were also hard at work writing a ballad for the movie called "Ever Since the World Began". (I'll talk about that song in another Behind the Song.) We booked time at Chicago Recording Company to demo these two songs for Stallone.

Frankie and I taught the song to the band on the spot. "Tiger" seemed to click from the moment Marc hit the crashes at the beginning. (By the way, that signature intro came to me in the car one day as I was looking for a dramatic way to start the song, emphasizing the slashing punches being thrown in the fight sequences. It was reminiscent of an intro Frankie and I had put together a few years earlier for "Youngblood" on Survivor's first album.) Two takes later we had the basic track. We had set up the drums in an unused storage room adjacent to the studio so we had no eye contact with Marc, but we gladly sacrificed that for the awesome sound of the drums. Stephan laid down the amazing staccato bass part. I was on grand piano and Frankie on electric guitar.

The next day we came back for overdubs. I laid down my flanged Les Paul for the double-time dead string guitar part and double-tracked it for the stereo effect. Getting that part right in the pocket was difficult but it really glued the track together when it was done. Then Frankie replaced his basic track with the final power guitar parts and overdubbed the extra sustain harmonies you hear in the third verse. Dave was in top form and his vocal went quickly with his wife cheering him on in the control room. I laid down the string overdub at the end, we added some backward cymbals and grand piano for the intro effect and we were ready to mix. This step was handled by Frankie, then we sent it out to Stallone for his input.

We didn't have to wait long for his response. It was overwhelming! He loved "Eye of the Tiger". He told us it was exactly what he was looking for, but requested a mix with louder drums and asked if we could write a fourth verse instead of repeating the first as we had done. We told him we could and went about modifying the first verse keeping some of those elements and changing others.

We sent Stallone the remixed and lyrically complete version and all concerned agreed that we had hit the mark. It was going to be the title song for the biggest movie of 1982. (This "demo" became the actual version of the song heard in the movie. We later re-recorded it for the album.) The events to follow were something every band, every songwriter dreams of - the gala Hollywood movie premier, the TV, the press, the Grammy award, the Oscar nomination, the Peoples' Choice award, the touring and the ovation of the crowd every time we started the song. It was almost as if Survivor was living the Rocky story - the unknown rock band rising up from obscurity with the stubborn tenacity to beat the odds and make it to the top. That was Survivor in 1982 and we found ourselves at Number One for seven weeks selling 5 million records worldwide.

People ask how long it took to write "Eye of the Tiger". I answer honestly that although it only took a few days, we had been writing that song all of our lives. We just needed the perfect opportunity to express it. Luck is sometimes defined as opportunity meeting preparation. In Rocky III, somehow we hit on that combination.

We're proud to say that the song still stands today as a strong motivational anthem. We hear stories from people every day in sports, business, art and music - people with physical disabilities and those who have come out on the other side of adversity with their spirits still shining - all tell us how much that song means to them. That's how this song keeps giving back to us.

The one defining moment when I knew we had connected with the world came in a very humble package. Survivor was on the road with REO Speedwagon and the record had only been out a few weeks. I went out alone to a Pizza Hut to get something to eat when a little five-year-old girl walked over to the jukebox. I heard her shriek out "Daddy, Daddy, they've got my song - the Tiger song!" Daddy came over, pressed the right buttons and suddenly "Eye of the Tiger" rocked the room with the girl smiling, singing and dancing to the beat. I knew then that we had somehow tapped into the pulse of the people and the American Heartbeat would never be quite the same.

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