{"id":288701,"date":"2026-07-07T00:22:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T00:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288701\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T00:22:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T00:22:48","slug":"survivor-wrote-this-song-to-beat-one-of-queens-biggest-hits-in-the-early-80s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/288701\/","title":{"rendered":"Survivor Wrote This Song To Beat One of Queen\u2019s Biggest Hits in the Early 80s"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1982, Survivor had their first No. 1 single with \u201cEye Of The Tiger<\/a>\u201d.\u00a0 The song was written by band members Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan. \u201cEye Of The Tiger\u201d is the title track of Survivor\u2019s third studio album. It also appears in the film Rocky III, starring Sylvester Stallone. An integral part of the film, Peterik and Sullivan wrote \u201cEye Of The Tiger\u201d. Still, they owe the song in part to Queen\u2019s 1980 hit single, \u201cAnother One Bites The Dust<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stallone personally reached out to Peterik and Sullivan, asking them to write something for Rocky III. But when the songwriters were sent the movie, the Queen song was where \u201cEye Of The Tiger\u201d ended up being placed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we got the initial rough cut of the movie, the scene that \u2018Eye Of The Tiger\u2019 appears in was cut to \u2018Another One Bites The Dust\u2019 by Queen,\u201d Peterik recalls<\/a>. \u201cFrankie and I are watching this. The punches are being thrown, and we\u2019re going, \u2018Holy crap, this is working like a charm.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The writers called Stallone to ask why Queen\u2019s song wasn\u2019t in the film. But fortunately for Survivor, Queen would not give up publishing rights to the song, making way for Survivor instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankie and I looked at each other and went, \u2018Man, this is going to be tough to beat,\u2019\u201d Peterik recounts. \u201cWe had the spirit of, \u2018We\u2019ve got to try to top this.\u2019 I started doing that now-famous dead string guitar riff and started slashing those chords to the punches we saw on the screen, and the whole song took shape in the next three days.\u201d<\/p>\n

How Jim Peterik and Frank Sullivan Wrote \u201cEye Of The Tiger\u201d for Survivor<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

\u201cEye Of The Tiger\u201d says in part, \u201cRising up, back on the street \/ Did my time, took my chances \/ Went the distance, now I\u2019m back on my feet \/ Just a man and his will to survive \u2026 It\u2019s the eye of the tiger \/ It\u2019s 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\u2019s watching us all with the eye of the tiger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peterik credits Sullivan with coming up with the lines that helped flesh out the entire song.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankie came in with the lines, \u2018Back on the street, doin\u2019 time, taking chances,\u201d Peterik says. \u201cI loved those lines immediately, and suggested, \u2018Rising up, back on the street, did my time, took my chances,\u2019 to make it fit with the storyline. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

For two hours, Peterik and Sullivan wrote, getting everything recorded on cassette.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, the music was about 80 percent complete. And the lyric about 30 percent,\u201d Peterik says. \u201cOver the next few days, I worked hard on the lyrics, remembering pieces of movie dialogue like, \u2018Went the distance,\u2019 referring to the central phrase of the first Rocky movie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Peter reveals the song was almost called \u201cSurvival\u201d instead.<\/p>\n

Photo by Ebet Roberts\/Redferns<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1982, Survivor had their first No. 1 single with \u201cEye Of The Tiger\u201d.\u00a0 The song was written…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[27179,11365,9,24,63,666,122,124,123,23559],"class_list":["post-288701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-1980s","tag-classic-rock","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queen","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news","tag-survivor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}