“Don't Tread on Me” begins with a melody from “America,” composed by Leonard Bernstein for the musical West Side Story. The melody appears in the song's introductory passage on Metallica's The Black Album.
The connection is a brief musical interpolation rather than a cover of the complete West Side Story song. Metallica used the recognizable melody as an opening detail before moving into its own heavy-metal arrangement. The song's title also connects to the Gadsden flag, whose motto is “Don't Tread on Me.”
The track is sometimes remembered as one of the album's commercial singles, but it was issued to rock radio as a promotional release and did not receive a commercial single release. That distinction separates it from the album's five principal commercial singles.