Another classic music video from the 80s has hit YouTube's Billion Views Club! This time, it's the Rocky III pump-up anthem "Eye of the Tiger," which was created by Survivor and released in 1982.
The video for the legendary song consists of the band’s five members power walking down city streets. Their fierce stroll takes them through an industrial warehouse filled with plumbing and construction parts and up into a loft...packed with what looks like mothballed movie props. Vocalist Dave Bickler then sings the iconic refrain: “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.”
This is the band’s first video to cross the billion-views milestone. In addition to serving as the theme song for the Rocky threequel, the explosive track was also a single from the band’s third studio album of the same name. Founding guitarist Frankie Sullivan — who co-wrote the song with founding rhythm guitarist/keyboardist Jim Peterik — confirmed to Guitar Player magazine in an interview in March of this year that Survivor was not actually Stallone’s first choice. As Sullivan recounted, Stallone used Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” in an earlier cut of the film, but was unable to keep it in the final version.
“I actually saw it on the film at the studio when I was there with Sly,” Sullivan said, who added that the deal to use “Tiger” was set in motion during a meeting at Roa’s Hollywood Italian restaurant by the owners of Survivor’s label, Tony and Ben Scotti of Scotti Brothers Records.
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“They were all good friends,” said Sullivan of the siblings and Stallone. “Tony was real smart, and he said to Sly, ‘I’ve got this band, maybe we could help each other.’ Tony asked Sly to call me, which he did. That dinner was probably the best thing that ever happened to my career.”
After watching the film, Sullivan said it was a rush to finish the track, with the music taking “about 10 minutes,” while the lyrics took three days to finalize. “We had 90 percent of them, but we couldn’t come up with a title,” the guitarist recalled.
While looking through the script he spotted a line where rival Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers) reminds Rocky that he used to have the eye of the tiger. “And that was our title,” Sullivan said.
Survivor is still an active touring band, albeit they've been through several lineup replacements since the 1980s. On February 28, 2019, the former bassist Stephan Ellis died at his home in California, at age 69. The group's last LP was Reach, which came out in 2006.
The first music video from the '80s to cross a billion views on YouTube was Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine." Others include A-ha’s “Take On Me," Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up," Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want To Have Fun," Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” the Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” and George Michael's "Careless Whisper."
Rewatch the video for "Eye of the Tiger" below.
Check out our selection of free stations streaming Survivor music at Live365.com.
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Article Image: Close-up of Survivor vocalist David Bickler in the "Eye of the Tiger" music video. (Survivor Band via YouTube.)
