Songfacts®:

• This comedy/novelty tune is among the first rap-metal songs. It was originally going to be recorded with the Beastie Boys but the proposed collaboration didn't work out. Anthrax drummer Charlie Benante told us: "What happened was we had this track and we were good friends with people at Def Jam. Someone got word to them, the Beastie Boys, about possibly doing this collaboration. And then they were into it. I remember I was with Metallica when they played the Felt Forum, like in 1986, and Mike D and Ad Rock were there. I remember him asking, 'So what's up with this track?' And I said, 'Well, the track is done. It's just kind of a scheduling thing.' And we just never got it together as far as that goes. Because they were fu--in'... boom! Blowing up. So that was it. The schedules never worked out, so we ended up doing it.
  
  "We just went for it," he added. "Looking back at it, we tried to do somewhat of a Beastie Boy interpretation. And that was it. That song blew up on us and it was by accident."
• The chorus' lyrics are borrowed from a scene in the 1983 movie Easy Money, where Julio (Taylor Negron) tries to entice his fiancé Allison (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Rather than using a sample, the lines are performed by Anthrax bassist Frankie Bello. Guitarist Scott Ian told Sounds August 8, 1987: "We just love rap, so we thought, let's do it. Frankie would always say, I'm The Man - it's from that Rodney Dangerfield movie, Easy Money.
  
  "Me and my guitar roadie John actually wrote the rap," he added. "It was funny - at first, Danny (Spitz, guitarist), he didn't want anything to do with it. He wouldn't play on it or nothin'. He pretty much put it that if this goes down bad, he had nothing to do with it, y'know?"
• The main guitar riff was based on the melody of the Jewish folk song "Hava Nagila." (Scott Ian and Dan Spitz are both Jewish).