"Electric Eye" | ||||||||||
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Single by Judas Priest | ||||||||||
from the album Screaming for Vengeance | ||||||||||
Released | 1982 | |||||||||
Recorded | 1982 | |||||||||
Genre | Heavy metal | |||||||||
Length | 3:39 | |||||||||
Label | Columbia | |||||||||
Writer(s) |
Rob Halford K. K. Downing Glenn Tipton |
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Producer(s) | Tom Allom | |||||||||
Judas Priest singles chronology | ||||||||||
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"Electric Eye" is a song by British heavy metal band Judas Priest, from their 1982 album Screaming for Vengeance, and released as a single later that year. It has become a staple at concerts, usually played as the first song.
Benediction and Helloween, amongst many other bands, have covered this song.
Musically, the song is in the key of E minor, and its guitar solo is played by Glenn Tipton.
"Electric Eye" is featured in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories for PSP and PlayStation 2. It is also a playable track in Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s as a master track, including "The Hellion", and it also appears on Guitar Hero Smash Hits. Additionally, it is available for download on Rock Band, as of 22 April 2009, as part of the entire Screaming for Vengeance album download, or as a single song. It was also featured in the second trailer for the video game Brütal Legend.
This song is referenced in the movie Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, in the song "Break in-City (Storm the Gate!)".
"Electric Eye" is an allusion to the book Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, in the use of the name of the pseudo-omniscient satellite that watches over the community at all times. In this dystopia, the form of government, Ingsoc (Newspeak for English Socialism), is utterly totalitarian, and if citizens are caught rebelling in any manner, they "disappear". The song has been called "prescient" for its depiction of a modern surveillance state.