Keep track of the songs thru the week and then Friday listen to call and name their common theme to win free lunch at Jersey Mike’s ($25)
Today’s song became the biggest hit song of 1982. It topped the US singles chart for seven straight weeks, and brought this band from Chicago a Grammy and an Oscar nomination. This band was already well established with two albums under their belt, but it was Sylvester Stallone who made them stars.
Impressed by the band’s first couple of hits, the movie star/director reached out to see if they would help with the soundtrack to the upcoming Rocky III. Stallone insisted the song had “a pulse” to accompany boxing glove-clad fists being slammed into bruised eye sockets. The song’s punchy, staccato riff was perfect.
The band recalled, “Stallone sent the first 10 minutes of the film for us to watch, and I was so upset when it cut out,” he laughs. “So I told him I needed to see the rest of the movie to do it justice. It was totally untrue, I just wanted to know how it ended.”
“We’d recorded [today’s song] as a demo on February 1, 1982, and that’s the version used in the film...Sly liked it so much he didn’t wait around for us to re-cut it, though the version on our record was done in a professional studio.”
On the VHS cassette of Rocky III that Stallone sent to the band, it was this song in the place where today’s song ended up.
The band explained “When one of [our] idols, Brian May, attended one of our shows in Los Angeles in 1984, he brought up that subject. I offered to send him a copy of the tape, which I still own.”
This song was released as a single three weeks after Rocky III hit the screens. The song’s long stint at the top of the chart was almost like winning the lottery for the group, especially for guitarist Frankie Sullivan, who unlike his partners had been struggling to make ends meet.
“My bandmates were making six figures a year on sessions and commercials,” he says. “I couldn’t read music and didn’t know what a jingle was, but I did know that those guys all had nice cars and houses, whereas I could barely afford my $200-per-month apartment.”
Speaking of cashing in on commercials, the lead singer of today’s band, Dave Bickler, went on to some would say even GREATER fame and the guy who sang Budweiser's Real Men of Genius ads. (see below)
That campaign, and his participation in it, is said to have led to even more money for Bickler than today’s song ever did…
Survivor. Eye of The Tiger. I Know That Song!