It’s refrain has become universal shorthand for keeping your eye on the prize. And now Survivor‘s legendary Rocky III pump-up anthem, “Eye of the Tiger,” has crossed the one billion views mark on YouTube.
The video for the song that begins with a repetitive picked guitar part over cymbal crashes is quintessential early ’80s, mostly consisting of the band’s five members power walking down city streets looking focused and fierce. Their double-time 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 as beret- and leather-jacket-wearing vocalist Dave Bickler 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.”
The billion club entry represents the first one of the band’s videos to cross that high-water mark.
In addition to serving as the theme song for the threequel, the propulsive 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 Stallone’s first choice.
As Sullivan recounted, Stallone used Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” in an early 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.
“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 became a scramble to finish the track, with the music taking “about 10 minutes,” while the lyrics bubbled for three days. “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.
Watch the “Eye of the Tiger” video below.