“Knock you into tomorrow!” Then we heard it: the Big Hook. Rocky Balboa’s trainer, played by the gravelly voiced actor Burgess Meredith, tells the main character, “Rocky, you’re losing the eye of the tiger.” Bingo. There was our title, the focus of our game-changing smash.
The next day, we reconvened. We sat in the music room wondering where this lyric could start. Frankie broke the ice. He mumbled, “How about, ‘Back on the street, doing time, taking chances’?”
I liked the sound of those words. I thought about the script and Rocky’s quest to stay on top. I countered with, “How about this? ‘Rising up, back on the street, did my time, took my chances.’”
We had our start. From there the lyrics just seemed to flow with the storyline. The next few days as I jogged (an every morning ritual) I sweated out words and phrases.
“So many times, it happens too fast, you trade your passion for glory.” Yeah, great line. I would recite it into my Radio Shack cassette recorder. “Don’t lose your grip on the dreams of the past; you must fight just to keep them alive.” Yup, that’ll work, too.
When I had the bulk of the lyric and Frankie’s approval, we booked time at Chicago Recording Company (CRC) to record the demo. We rounded up Marc Droubay, our drummer, and Stephan Ellis, on bass, who were both living in a house that my wife, Karen, and I owned at the time. Stephan obviously didn’t understand the magnitude of the project. In fact, I remember how he groused about going down to the studio just to record “some movie music.”
The guys heard the song for the first time as I was pounding it out on the Yamaha grand piano in studio A. We set up the drums in the storage room in back of the studio to get that raw, ambient, John Bonham–style sound. The Led Zeppelin drummer was Marc’s main influence. You could hear it in his attack.
When it was time to record, Frankie sat in the control room next to our engineer, the late Phil Bonanno, to make sure the sounds were going down right. Frankie’s great set of ears always helped us get the most out of an engineer and a studio.
We found a click tempo, which is like a metronome that we would hear in our cans (headphones) to keep our tempo steady. We were concerned because the tendency for most musicians is to rush the tempo. In this song, that outcome would have been deadly.
As soon as we lit into the song I felt the surge of magic. Oh, my God! Marc laid down the groove with four on the floor, the kick drum pounding on every beat and the jackhammer snare that Frankie and Phil had dialed in just right. Steph laid down the steady plod with his amazing pick style, and, on piano, I supplied the expansive chording; my goal was to fill out our song and make it move.
Survivor’s lead singer, Dave Bickler, did not know the song well enough yet to sing a guide vocal so we just kept the melody in our heads as we played. The second take was magic. It felt like history was going down; we were achieving a solidity of sound I had never heard before and rarely since.
Frankie declared it was a “take” and we filed into the control booth for a very loud and powerful playback. The overdubs went quickly the next day. I laid down the sixteenth-note digga-digga-digga muted guitar figure to the bottom using my white Les Paul Custom running through my 1959 Fender Tweed Bassman amp and an Electric Mistress chorus effect—this device mimics the sound of an electric twelve-string—then I meticulously doubled this part, which Frankie panned far left and right in the stereo spread to make it sound huge.
Now it was Frankie’s turn. He did the first two passes on a tobacco sunburst Les Paul, which he christened “Firewood,” through his Marshall fifty-watt half-stack. Then, he layered on top two tracks of Fender Stratocaster to give shimmer to the raw slabs of power guitar. (A few years later at a music/tennis event, the amazing Alan Parsons asked me how the hell we got that incredible guitar sound. Do you think I told him?)
Two days later it was Dave’s time to shine. He sang as if his life depended on it.
“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.”
Copyright 1982 Warner/Chappell Music ASCAP/Jim Peterik Music/Bicycle Music ASCAP/Rude Music BMI/Sony/ATV Melody BMI/Three Wise Boys Music LLC BMI
Dave hit that high E on the word “eye” and made this one of the most exhilarating moments of my life and in rock ’n’ roll history. Everyone in the control room cheered as he walked in for the first playback. No one else could have sung that song as well as Dave. He was born for that performance.
When we sent the rough mix to Stallone, he responded, “Yeah, you guys really did it! This is exactly what I was looking for. But you got a little lazy on me. You forgot to write me a third verse!” On the original demo, we had Dave repeat the first verse a second time in the third verse slot.
So now it was back to the drawing board. After discussions with Frankie, we decided to cheat a bit and grab pieces of the first verse and alternate with new lines. Stallone loved our job of self-thievery.
“Rising up, straight to the top, had the guts, got the glory. Went the distance, now I’m not gonna stop. Just a man and his will to survive.” (In a recently discovered notebook, I found that one of my trial lyrics for the first line of the final chorus was, “Rising up, ready to spring!” Ouch!)
I was not totally surprised when “Eye of the Tiger” went on to hit number one on the Billboard charts and stayed there for seven weeks, or that it would sell 5 million records in its first year and 30 million to date. Hell, we had a 10-million-dollar video titled Rocky III to promote it!
What amazes me most is that this song remains alive and well—stronger, it seems with every passing year. It continues to be a thread in the fabric of millions of lives and it has motivated so many to go beyond their perceived limitations and achieve more than they ever could imagine.
Over the years, “Eye of the Tiger” has given focus and strength to athletes. It has helped people rise from wheelchairs and walk, and it has been part of the soundtrack to the lives of so many individuals from all walks of life.
It seems as if every generation discovers it and claims the song as its own. Truly, in my case, destiny began with a phone call and changed a thousand destinies along the way. It certainly changed mine forever. Now when people ask what comes first for me, the words or the music, I answer, “Neither. First comes a phone call…in my case—from Sylvester Stallone.”
I HAD A VERY COOL CHILDHOOD. Not only was I the youngest child, I also held the status of being the only boy. Nobody knew I was coming. I was a complete surprise. Everyone thought I’d come out as Barbara—they already had a name picked out for me!
I was treasured. I felt completely valued by my parents and sisters. Some people only talk about self-esteem, but I knew that I was special because my family made me feel that way. My earliest memory was being bathed in a white wicker bassinet, which was located right off the kitchen. That shared experience was so special—my whole family smiling and cooing at me was pretty seductive stuff. I think that’s why I became a performer. I always loved the feeling of being the center of attention.
When I was about three years old I walked into the living room where my parents and sisters were cooing over a newborn baby that a relative of ours had brought over. I surveyed the situation with disgust and before storming out the front door to the porch, I muttered, “Why don’t you do something more important rather!” I didn’t quite