Peace Sells

"Peace Sells" reflects band frontman Dave Mustaine's political and social beliefs.^[12] The title of the song was taken from a copy of Reader's Digest that Mustaine saw, which had a story written by Patti Smith with the words "Peace sells, but nobody's buying it".^[13] Band drummer Gar Samuelson encouraged Mustaine to write more political lyrics in his songs, which in turn helped the song be a success.^[14] The lyrics for the song were written on the wall of the bands rehearsal space, due to Mustaine not having a pen or paper to write with.^[15] The song dispels stereotypes of metal fans that were pushed by the media throughout the '80s.^[16]

"I wrote it because I was tired of people mocking metal in general and mocking people who are metal fans," Mustaine told Rolling Stone. "It was hard for me to watch the way we were stereotyped on TV, just as dumbasses. For the most part, I think that a lot of musicians are very intelligent and very talented. It's a bummer the way people had been stereotyped."

— Dave Mustaine.^[15]

The bass intro for "Peace Sells" was written by Mustaine.^[2][17] Ellefson had a BC Rich Eagle bass that he had removed the frets from. When Mustaine saw it, he grabbed the bass and almost immediately wrote the intro.^[15] Later that day, the two met up with Samuelson and guitarist Chris Poland, where the song would be fully fleshed out. The original version spanned over eight minutes, and was written in only a few hours.^[15][18] Samuelson suggested that the song be shortened, saying "This song's too good to draw it out like that. We've gotta make this song short and sweet."^[17]

The second half of the song bumps up the tempo and speeds through to the end.^[19] It has more guitar solos from Poland, and features Ellefson adding a high harmony to Mustaines main vocal refrain.^[2]

A music video was produced for the song, which was the band's first ever (Wake Up Dead, the lead single, only got a video after its UK release).^[20] The video was directed by artist Robert Longo and edited by artist Gretchen Bender.^[21] The video includes a dramatic pause in the middle of the song. The interstitial features a teenage boy, wearing a Slayer T-shirt, watching a montage of live Megadeth performances and war footage on his living room television set. The boy's father, states "What is this garbage you're watching? I want to watch the news!," and changes the television channel to a news station using the remote control. His son, replying with "This is the news!," changes it back to the Megadeth performance using the TV set's channel knob.^[22] This part of the video was parodied by comedian Brian Posehn in his Metal by Numbers video. The beginning of the video also showed the explosion of the original low-cost skull used on the cover of the previous album, Killing is My Business... and Business is Good!.

The video is recognized as one of the main reasons the band broke into the mainstream.^[22]

"Once the video for 'Peace Sells' hit MTV we knew we had something special going. You could tell by watching it that it wasn't your typical high gloss, overly produced film-type of video but rather a real raw and edgy clip and that was something really unique on MTV in those days. After that people outside of just Thrash metal took notice of who we were."

— David Ellefson, November, 2011.^[2]

Due to the flashing images near the end, the video was banned in the UK.^[23]

On July 14, 1999, Samuelson died of liver failure at age 41 in Orange City, Florida.^[24] Eleven days later, during Megadeth's performance at Woodstock '99, Mustaine dedicated "Peace Sells" to Samuelson's memory.^[25]

Production and performance credits are adapted from the album liner notes.^[30]

Megadeth

• Dave Mustaine – guitars, lead vocals
• David Ellefson – bass, backing vocals
• Chris Poland – guitars
• Gar Samuelson – drums

Production

• Dave Mustaine – production
• Randy Burns – production, engineering
• Casey McMackin – engineering
• Paul Lani – mixing
• Stan Katayama – mixing

2004 remix and remaster

• Dave Mustaine – production, mixing
• Ralph Patlan – engineering, mixing
• Lance Dean – engineering, editing
• Scott "Sarge" Harrison – editing
• Tom Baker – mastering

• List of anti-war songs

• Ellefson, David; McIver, Joel (2013). My Life with Deth: Discovering Meaning in a Life of Rock & Roll. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-9988-3.

• Official music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdEupVsL07E