Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger (PatC's Fightin' Mix)

“Eye of the Tiger” is a song performed by the American rock band Survivor from the album Eye of the Tiger, released in 1982. It was used at the request of Sylvester Stallone for the film Rocky III. The mix of the song heard in the film features tiger growls, though these are omitted on the album and single versions.

“Eye of the Tiger” topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for six weeks beginning July 24, 1982. The single was number two on the Billboard Top Pop Singles of 1982 year-end chart and number one on the Cash Box Top 100 Pop Singles year-end chart. “Eye of the Tiger” also reached number one in the UK, Irish and Australian charts. The single was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1982, representing two million records sold in the U.S. Survivor won the Grammy Award for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for “Eye of the Tiger”. The song received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song and was voted “Favorite Song” by the People’s Choice Awards (in a tie with “Truly” by Lionel Richie).

In an interview with Songfacts, co-writer Jim Peterik explained the song’s title.

At first, we wondered if calling it ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ was too obvious. The initial draft of the song, we started with ‘It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight, rising up to the spirit of our rival, and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and it all comes down to survival.’ We were going to call the song ‘Survival.’ In the rhyme scheme, you can tell we had set up ‘rival’ to rhyme with ‘survival.’ At the end of the day, we said, ‘Are we nuts?’ That hook is so strong, and ‘rival’ doesn’t have to be a perfect rhyme with the word ‘tiger.’ We made the right choice and went with ‘Eye Of The Tiger.

The song was listed at #21 on Billboard’s All Time Top 100 and was named the 63rd best hard rock song of all time by VH1.

I used the Extended European Version of the song and Ultrasound’s Re-Xtended Sandbird Remix to make this extended version. Both of which are also available to download.

PatC’s Fightin’ Mix (7:56)

Extended European Version (5:54)

Ultrasound’s Re-Xtended Sandbird Remix (9:57)