The motto "Don't Tread On Me" was very popular in colonial America. It is not known who originally coined the phrase, but it was paired up with the image of the American timber rattlesnake and printed on a famous flag commonly referred to as the "Gadsden Flag." Use of this flag and variations of it by American soldiers, sailors, and Marines grew fast and widespread during the American Revolution. There is a great historical significance and meaning to this flag and it is heavily linked to the Metallica song. The idea of the rattlesnake as a symbol of America was first thought of by Benjamin Franklin when he published the world's first ever political cartoon in 1754. It was a rattlesnake cut into several pieces and each part labeled a different colony. Under the snake it said "Join, or Die," encouraging colonial unity in standing up to the homeland monarchy ruling them from across the sea. Over the next two decades the rattlesnake, or more specifically the American timber rattlesnake of the northeastern states gained popularity (notice the rattlesnake on the cover of Metallica's Black Album).
The opening guitar riff (with triplets) is taken from the song "America" in the 1957 musical West Side Story.
In a 2001 interview for Playboy magazine, Hetfield rated this as not one of his favorites musically. The band never played it live.
This has been criticized for its jingoistic lyrics. At the time, the band's Danish drummer Lars Ulrich had to look up the word "jingoistic" in a dictionary, to see what it meant. He said: "It pissed me off!"
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