The Alan Parsons Project – Sirius

Abbey Road opener, Fairlight riff, then the Bulls tunnel walk

Sirius opens The Alan Parsons Project’s 1982 album Eye in the Sky, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London. Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson wrote it; Parsons produced. The instrumental runs under two minutes and leads straight into the title track. Parsons built the signature figure at home on a then-new Fairlight synthesizer, intending a short door into Eye in the Sky rather than a standalone hit. On the record, Ian Bairnson adds guitar, David Paton bass, Stuart Elliott drums, with Eric Woolfson and Haydn Bendall on additional keyboards and Andrew Powell arranging orchestra.

Arista released the album in May 1982. Sirius was never meant as the commercial face of the project; that role went to the sung title song. What you hear first is the delayed synth figure, then guitar rising over a steady pulse. There is no vocal. The piece works as architecture: tension, lift, handoff into Woolfson’s vocal on the next track. Progressive-rock radio and album listeners treated it as the foyer to the LP.

Its second life started in Chicago. Bulls public-address announcer Tommy Edwards heard the track in a movie theater, bought Eye in the Sky, and practiced reading the starting lineup over it. From the late 1980s it became the team’s entrance music at Chicago Stadium, then a sports-arena staple across North America. Many listeners know the riff from basketball long before they can name Parsons or Woolfson.