Cadence to Arms is a renamed instrumental cover by the Boston-based punk band Dropkick Murphys, and is the opening track on their first album, Do or Die. The original song is Scotland the Brave, which, alongside Flower of Scotland, is the unofficial National Anthem of Scotland, and quite possibly the single most recognized bagpipe tune. The song opens with a single bagpiper playing through the first verse and chorus of Scotland the Brave. The rest of the band breaks in thereafter with complementary guitars and drumming typical to punk form as the bagpipes continue.
Like Queen's "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions" or Green Day's "Brain Stew/Jaded and "Chump" and "Longview" ," Cadence to Arms is a prelude to another song - in this case, the album's title track, "Do or Die".
Cadence to Arms is not the only such cover song, known amongst fans as the "bagpipe covers." The band's second album, The Gang's All Here, has a similar cover of Amazing Grace, one of the most recognizable Christian hymns. Most recently, their second singles collection featured "Victory," a bagpipe cover of Notre Dame's fight song. While the band's Irish Catholic heritage makes the latter a natural choice, the former, being a Protestant hymn, may seem out of place.
