"Only the Strong Survive" is a 1968 song by Jerry Butler, released on his album The Ice Man Cometh. It was the most successful single of his career, reaching #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was #1 for two weeks on the Billboard Black Singles Chart, in March and April 1969, respectively.
"Only the Strong Survive" was the first of two singles which were platinum certified by the RIAA, selling over a million copies (the second was "Ain’t Understanding Mellow" in 1972).
Elvis Presley (1969) and Billy Paul (1977) also recorded versions of this song. Another version of this song was recorded by The Trammps in the Netherlands in 2003. It sounds very similar to Billy Paul's version. The song appears on the compilation album 'Only The Strong Survive'(Sony), which oddly enough shows the remaining four group members on the cover. There's also an extended clubmix of this song on this cd. The clubmix was produced by Maas and Van der Weyde.
Famous quotes containing the words strong and/or survive:
“Prayer is the fair and radiant daughter of all the human virtues, the arch connecting heaven and earth, the sweet companion that is alike the lion and the dove; and prayer will give you the key of heaven. As pure and as bold as innocence, as strong as all things are that are entire and single, this fair and invincible queen rests on the material world; she has taken possession of it; for, like the sun, she casts about it a sphere of light.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)
“If human beings are to survive in a nuclear age, committing acts of violence may eventually have to become as embarrassing as urinating or defecating in public are today.”
—Myriam Miedzian, U.S. author. Boys Will Be Boys, ch. 3 (1991)