“I was homeless at the time, and I was living in a rehearsal place in Vernon, California. I was seeing a girl, Diana – there were a lot of songs I wrote about her. I actually wrote the lyrics to that song on the wall, in that building. I didn’t have any paper in the studio, but I had a Sharpie, so I just wrote on the wall. Whoever inherited our rehearsal room after I moved out, saw the original lyrics to ‘Peace Sells’ on the wall. They probably painted right over it and didn’t even know it.”

— Dave Mustaine on Peace Sells

The video for Peace Sells was directed by the painter, Robert Longo, and is probably best known for the cut scene that features a teenager in a Slayer t-shirt telling his angry father that the video and the news are one in the same.  Among Longo’s other videos: R.E.M.’s The One I Love and New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle.  He also directed the regrettable cyberpunk movie, Johnny Mnemonic.

If the opening bass line sounds familiar, you may have heard it used as the opening theme for MTV News.  Or maybe, like me, you spent an early being chased by the police in Vice City while listening to Megadeth on V-Rock.

Gotta love those Vice City memories!