Sirius Eye In The Sky Alan Parsons Project

Sirius
Eye In The Sky Album: Eye In The Sky (1982)
by The Alan Parsons Project

The instrumental track "Sirius" opens the album and leads into "Eye In The Sky," but unlike some of the Pink Floyd tracks that radio stations played together, "Sirius" was usually dropped when "Eye In The Sky" got airtime. "Sirius" later came into its own as a jock jam when the Chicago Bulls started using it as introduction music in Michael Jordan's rookie year. It became the soundtrack to the Bulls' six championships in that era, and was appropriated by a number of other teams in various sports.

The rumor has it that this song gets its theme from George Orwell's 1984, which revolves around a dystopian future where citizens are constantly monitored by a totalitarian world government. However, even the official page of the Alan Parsons project that talks about this song doesn't mention any connection.

Alan Parsons did cop to a 1984 association on the album as a whole, stating, "We wanted to base the album on the sort of concept of big brother is watching you - there's always a camera watching you, there's always a helicopter in the sky overseeing you, and you can read a line of small newspaper print from space."

Lead vocals were from Eric Woolfson, Parsons' main collaborator. He was Parsons' lyricist and manager.

The Alan Parsons Project, which was strictly a studio group at the time, used various members on lead vocals; Woolfson would usually record a guide vocal and Alan Parsons, who was also the group's producer, would decide whose voice best suited the song. In later years, Parsons toured with a band and sang this song during performances.

In some ways, this is an extension of The Alan Parsons Project's previous album The Turn of a Friendly Card, which deals with gambling. Woolfson spent a lot of time in casinos and was fascinated with the hidden cameras watching his every move.

This was the most successful song the group ever had and was their only US Top 10 hit. It didn't fare as well in the UK, but then again, none of their songs did.

The lush sound Parsons created on this song is something he learned from his years as a sound engineer. He worked on some seminal albums, including Abbey Road by The Beatles and Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd.

Parsons didn't think highly of this song and had to be convinced to put it on the album. As Woolfson told it, he and the other musicians loved the song, but Parsons thought so little of it that he bet their guitarist Ian Bairnson that it would not be a hit.

The cover art to the album Eye in the Sky - this song is the title track - has the famous Egyptian symbol of the eye of Horus. Horus was one of the bird-headed Egyptian gods, with the head of a falcon. The eye symbol itself - in ironic contradiction to the lyrics - meant protection, power, and health.

In America, this is by far the biggest hit for The Alan Parsons Project