“Don't Tread on Me” shares its title with the motto on the Gadsden flag featured on The Black Album cover.
The cover shows a coiled snake in the lower-right area, derived from the Gadsden flag. That historic flag carries the words “Don't Tread on Me,” and Metallica used the same phrase as the title of the album's sixth track.
The connection is easy to miss because the original cover design was deliberately restrained. The Metallica logo and snake were embossed against a black background, making both emblems difficult to see. Later editions used dark gray imagery that made the design more visible.
“Don't Tread on Me” was also issued to rock radio after the album's release, but it was not released as a commercial single. That distinction separates it from the five official commercial singles. The song's title and the cover's imagery therefore reinforce one another without making it part of that single sequence.