Eye of the Tiger

By 1982, Survivor had released two unsuccessful albums and feared their record label would drop them. That year the director and actor Sylvester Stallone enlisted the band to write a song for his film Rocky III, after Queen denied him permission to use "Another One Bites the Dust". He asked for something street with a pulse to match the punches of the boxing scenes, and sent them a copy of the film's introduction montage depicting the boxer Rocky Balboa and the rise of his rival, Clubber Lang.

Guitarist Frankie Sullivan and keyboardist Jim Peterik wrote "Eye of the Tiger", building a riff whose chord changes mirrored the timing of punches. The title came from a line spoken by the character Apollo Creed, a phrase Stallone had taken from the 1969 film A Dream of Kings. Survivor first planned to call the song "Survival", but decided the tiger hook was stronger and did not need to rhyme perfectly. They cut a demo at the Chicago Recording Company on February 1, 1982, with Sullivan playing a guitar with a broken headstock he had glued back together. Stallone loved the demo and insisted on using it in the film, though the band rerecorded it for the album and single.

Released that May, the single topped charts worldwide and spent six weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. At the 25th Annual Grammy Awards it won Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal, though it lost the Song of the Year category to Willie Nelson's "Always on My Mind".