“Don’t Tread on Me” shares its title with the motto on the Gadsden flag and references the flag’s snake imagery.
The song appears on Metallica’s 1991 self-titled album, commonly called The Black Album. Its title uses the well-known phrase associated with the yellow Gadsden flag, which depicts a coiled rattlesnake above the words “Don’t Tread on Me.”
That connection also explains the snake on the album cover. The cover’s subdued coiled snake was derived from the Gadsden flag, while the song title directly repeats the flag’s motto. The album therefore links its artwork and one of its tracks through the same historical symbol.
“Don’t Tread on Me” was issued to rock radio as a promotional single, but it was not released as a commercial single. The song’s introduction also uses an eight-bar phrase from “America,” a song from the musical West Side Story.