One of Megadeth's most famous songs came together very quickly

As is the case at times, Megadeth bassist David Ellefson says one the band's most famous songs came together very quickly.

Megadeth is about to release its 16th studio album, but one of the band’s most famous songs came from their second, 1986’s Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying?” During his latest appearance on Machine Head frontman Robb Flynn’s podcast, bassist David Ellefson talked about the title track, whose memorable opening bassline was used as the theme for MTV News.

Via Blabbermouth:

"Dave  (Mustaine) wrote the riff," Ellefson said. "I had a bass. It was a B.C. Rich Eagle bass, and I seem to think it was a fretless bass… Me and Dave were living with Karat Faye, who was the engineer [and] co-producer on the 'Killing Is My Business' record… We were sitting there, and Dave picks the bass up, and he starts noodling. He goes, 'Hey, Junior, come over here and play this.'

“So we started working on that, trying to get that figured out. And we go to rehearsal that night… We went down there, and that song just kind of wrote itself that night. Dave had the riffs, Gar [Samuelson, MEGADETH's then-drummer] started playing. We sort of put it together. [We had] a few suggestions here and there. I mean, that song, literally, within a couple of hours was done… I don't know if it was that night. It might have been. We were sitting there driving, and we had the radio on…

“And I remember Dave just looks at me and he goes, 'Hey, what do you think about 'Peace Sells… But Who's Buying?' [And I said], 'Cool. It sounds great.' And wheels were turning. Dave would just kind of sit there, and wheels were always turning and ideas were coming up. And that became that song. And he wrote the lyrics, I think, pretty quickly; it kind of fell out."

As Blabbermouth notes, VH1 ranked "Peace Sells” No. 11 on its list of the “40 Greatest Metal Songs” in 2006. As for the usage on MTV News, frontman David Mustaine has repeatedly maintained he never saw any royalties.