“Don't Tread on Me” from Metallica's The Black Album uses a phrase from which musical?

Metallica's “Don't Tread on Me” uses an eight-bar phrase from the musical West Side Story.

The phrase appears in the song's instrumental introduction and comes from “America,” a popular number in the 1957 musical. Leonard Bernstein composed the music for West Side Story, while Stephen Sondheim wrote its lyrics. Metallica's use of the phrase is an interpolation rather than a quotation of the entire musical song.

“Don't Tread on Me” appeared on Metallica's 1991 self-titled album and was also issued as a promotional single. Its title refers to the motto associated with the Gadsden flag, whose snake imagery also connects with the snake shown on The Black Album's cover.

The song's lyrics draw on American Revolutionary imagery, including Patrick Henry's famous “liberty or death” idea and the phrase “To secure peace, is to prepare for war.” Because the introduction sounds like a formal, familiar melody, listeners sometimes identify the source as a national anthem or march; the specific source is Bernstein's “America” from West Side Story.