“Don't Tread on Me” from Metallica's The Black Album interpolates the melody of “America” from the musical West Side Story. The connection appears in the song's introductory passage.
“America” was composed by Leonard Bernstein for West Side Story, the musical created with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and a book by Arthur Laurents. The musical premiered on Broadway in 1957 and later became internationally famous through its 1961 film adaptation.
Metallica's use of the melody is brief and transformed into the setting of a heavy metal album. The reference is easy to miss because the familiar musical-theater phrase appears only at the beginning before the song moves into its guitar-driven arrangement.
“Don't Tread on Me” is also notable in the album's release history. It was sent to rock radio after the album came out, but it was not released as a commercial single. The album's five commercial singles were “Enter Sandman,” “The Unforgiven,” “Nothing Else Matters,” “Wherever I May Roam,” and “Sad but True.”