“Don't Tread on Me” includes an introduction interpolating Leonard Bernstein's melody from West Side Story.
The brief opening reference comes from “America,” a melody Bernstein composed for the musical West Side Story. Metallica incorporated that familiar musical idea into the beginning of “Don't Tread on Me,” then moved into a compact heavy-metal song built around the Gadsden flag's famous motto. The connection links the album's music to its cover imagery.
The song appears as the eighth track on Metallica. Its title uses the same phrase associated with the Gadsden flag, whose coiled snake is depicted on the album cover. That relationship is why the song is often discussed alongside the artwork rather than as an isolated track.
“Don't Tread on Me” is also easy to misclassify in the album's single history. It received rock-radio promotion after the album's release, but it was not issued as one of the five commercial singles. Those singles were “Enter Sandman,” “The Unforgiven,” “Nothing Else Matters,” “Wherever I May Roam,” and “Sad but True.”