Eye in the Sky

Woolfson sings lead, Parsons plays the Fairlight CMI and produced and engineered, Bairnson plays guitars, Paton bass, Elliott drums and Chris Rainbow sings backing vocals, recorded late in 1981 at Abbey Road. The single, with "Mammagamma" and "Gemini" on the B-sides, is 3:55 and omits the "Sirius" intro. Wikipedia says it was inspired by Woolfson's thoughts on surveillance and religion; Songfacts and Ultimate Classic Rock tell of a 1980 casino visit during The Turn of a Friendly Card, where a surveillance system was called the eye in the sky, a phrase also used for a satellite and a news helicopter. We found no direct lyric interview with Woolfson. Parsons was lukewarm and nearly dropped it, until a driving rhythm part he called this chugging thing worked well; Bairnson thought it a huge hit, and Songfacts and a search summary report a bet over whether it would be one, the accounts differing.

It reached 3 on the Hot 100, debuting at 85 on July 3, 1982, their highest US chart song and only US top ten; it was 1 in Canada and Spain, 3 on Cash Box and on US Adult Contemporary, and 22 in Australia. It is Gold in the US, Canada, Italy and Spain and platinum in New Zealand. "Sirius", the intro, was written because Parsons felt the song sounded odd starting cold; the Fairlight clavichord sample was re-recorded in B minor to lead into the song's D major, and radio played the song without it. "Sirius" later became the Chicago Bulls lineup intro, used since 1984 per American Songwriter, and the Nebraska Cornhuskers' Tunnel Walk since 1994.

Songfacts says it has been the group's most-played concert song since Parsons began touring in the 1990s. Asia with John Payne covered it on Recollections: A Tribute to British Prog, and Parsons recorded a Catalan version, "Sere els teus ulls al cami", in 2019 for TV3's La Marato. We do not know whether our upload is the album version or the single edit.