To Kill Your Kind Lyrics — Lestat

Song Overview

Review and Highlights

Quick summary

• Act II set piece for Armand and the vampire chorus, staged as a tribunal that pronounces the gravest transgression.
• Music by Elton John, lyrics by Bernie Taupin; book by Linda Woolverton; the production premiered in San Francisco in late 2005 and ran on Broadway in spring 2006.
• The number marks a sharp pivot in the plot - a codified law delivered with ritual fury.
• No commercial single or released cast album exists; the cast album was recorded but shelved.
• On Broadway, Armand was portrayed by Drew Sarich, whose cutting baritone rides the song’s martial groove.

Creation History

By 2005, the long partnership between Elton John and Bernie Taupin had slipped into a new lane: theatre. Whereas John’s earlier stage work leaned on Tim Rice for lyrics, Lestat paired him back with Taupin for a full show. That creative swap matters for the voice of this song. Taupin’s language loves courtroom cadence and mythic verdicts. "No greater crime than to kill your kind" lands like a gavel strike. The assignment for the music is clear: build a ritual with movement and pulse strong enough to carry a decree.

Staging sharpened the edges. Robert Jess Roth’s production leaned on Matt West’s musical staging to give the vampire coven a collective body, so the chorus becomes both choir and jury. For this number the motion tends to be drum-tight: formations, pivots, a sense of sentence being carried out. Critics at the time clocked that intensity - sometimes admiring the jolt, sometimes side-eyeing the camp - but few denied that the piece woke up the room.

In practice there are two audible strains of the song circulating among fans: the Elton John demo that announces the hook with pop thrust, and the Broadway performance, which adds teeth through accent, consonants, and ensemble weight. The stage version makes Armand a prosecutor. Every repeat turns the law into liturgy.

Key takeaways

1. A courtroom in 4/4 - the ensemble serves as judge and jury while Armand prosecutes.
2. Repetition as power - the mantra structure turns a rule into fate.
3. Pop-rock theatre bones with percussive choral writing that pushes diction to the front.
4. The number reframes the show’s moral frame: sin is not hunger, it is betrayal of the tribe.

Song Meaning and Annotations

Plot

We are deep into Act II. Lestat’s past and present collide at the Theatre of the Vampires, where Armand presides. The coven has rules older than any city. When those rules are broken, punishment is not an argument - it is a rite. "To Kill Your Kind" is the rite set to music. The scene functions as a public reading of law and a public shaming. Armand calls out hypocrisy, mocks human softness, and rallies the company to enforce the code. The ensemble repeats the verdict until it becomes unavoidable: their society survives by policing its own. The price of breaking rank will be paid in blood.

Song Meaning

At its heart, the track is about boundary maintenance. Not morality in the human sense, but cohesion. Armand’s stance is chilling: compassion is a mortal weakness; for the immortal, loyalty is the only ethic. The hook "no greater crime than to kill your kind" redraws the map. Murder of mortals is daily weather; fratricide is the storm that tears the roof off. If Embrace It dresses appetite as philosophy, this number dresses discipline as survival. The sound mirrors that ethos. The groove is square-shouldered, words are hammered, breaths are rationed. There is a little thrill in that severity - which is the point. Extremes are seductive because they simplify.

Annotations

"Be still I say, for you excell / In virtues common in the infidel"

Armand opens like a headmaster. The diction is mock-polite, then insulting. "Infidel" signals a worldview that treats outsiders as raw material. The contrast between faux civility and bile primes the verdict to land harder.

"Do you look at me and see a fool? / Do we look like men for the likes of you?"

The first question is bait. The second snaps the trap. "Men" is not a species marker here, it is a status marker - a reminder that the coven rejects mortal terms. The delivery usually tightens rhythmically, vowels clipped to hit the consonants.

"What possesses you to cross that line / When you know what it means to kill your kind?"

Define the line, define the punishment. The push-pull of "possesses" nods to possession as both obsession and demonic force. The chorus arrives right after to confirm that possession’s cost.

"This demon rides a carousel"

A quick metaphor that tells you how Armand sees the offender: volatile, impish, trapped in cycles. The carousel image adds a grim amusement-park bounce that the orchestra underlines with snare and stabs.

"From the Ancient Ones to the next in line / It’s always been a sin to kill your kind!"

Appeal to precedent. The law is not being invented; it is being recited. That tradition-of-law framing gives the ensemble its function as a chorus of elders.

"Compassion is a weakness of the mortal race"

This line flips a human virtue into a liability for immortals. The scene weaponizes the word "mortal" - compassion becomes a costume to remove, not a value to honor. The musical texture goes lean here so the point lands dry and hard.

"No greater crime than to kill your maker!"

Late in the lyric the rule tightens from "kind" to "maker." That escalation turns the generic law into a personal indictment, aiming the scene at a specific act and its consequences. The ensemble’s echo answers like a courtroom gallery roaring assent.

Style and instrumentation

Call it rock-theatre with a ritual spine. Drums mark time like a march. Electric guitar colors the downbeats but avoids heroics, leaving space for massed voices. Piano outlines harmony, strings widen the air in transitions, and the ensemble sits forward in the mix. The writing favors unison shouts and syllabic rhythms that let choreography snap on consonants. It is designed to be intelligible in a big house and to make a crowd feel complicit in the verdict.

Emotional arc

Start: accusation. Middle: humiliation and codified law. End: a collective sentence. The arc is not soft. It is hard-edged and public. The rush, such as it is, comes from certainty. For a character like Armand, certainty is a drug.

Cultural touchpoints

The number belongs to a long line of theatre scenes where a crowd consolidates power by chanting its rules - think trial choruses, lynch mobs, or drill teams. In pop culture terms, some saw echoes of classic horror dance vocabulary in the staging. What matters for the song is that the collective beat makes the law feel ancient even when the instrumentation is contemporary.

Key Facts

• Artist: Elton John, Drew Sarich
• Featured: Armand with ensemble in the Broadway production
• Composer: Elton John
• Lyricist: Bernie Taupin
• Producer: Guy Babylon, Matt Still (for the unreleased Broadway cast album session)
• Release Date: April 25, 2006 - Broadway opening; no commercial single
• Genre: Pop rock theatre
• Instruments: Drum kit, bass, electric guitars, piano, strings, ensemble voices
• Label: Mercury Records recorded the cast album session; not released
• Mood: Severe, ritual, prosecutorial
• Length: Approximately 3 minutes 20 seconds in circulating captures
• Track #: 20 in common stage running orders
• Language: English
• Album: Lestat the Musical - Original Broadway Cast Recording (recorded May 22, 2006 - unreleased)
• Music style: Anthemic rock-theatre chorus with march-like cadence
• Poetic meter: Predominantly syllabic, with driving iambic pulses in repeated refrains

Canonical Entities & Relations

• Elton John - composed the score for Lestat.
• Bernie Taupin - wrote the lyrics for Lestat.
• Linda Woolverton - authored the book for the musical.
• Drew Sarich - portrayed Armand on Broadway; lead voice on this number.
• Robert Jess Roth - directed the Broadway production.
• Matt West - responsible for musical staging and choreography elements.
• Derek McLane - designed the sets for the production.
• Susan Hilferty - designed costumes for the production.
• Palace Theatre, New York - Broadway venue for spring 2006 run.
• Curran Theatre, San Francisco - pre-Broadway tryout location in winter 2005-2006.
• Mercury Records - recorded, but did not release, the Broadway cast album.

Questions and Answers

Where does "To Kill Your Kind" sit in the show?

Act II, inside the Theatre of the Vampires sequence. It is Armand’s public enforcement of coven law, backed by the vampire ensemble.

Who leads the number on Broadway?

Drew Sarich as Armand, with the ensemble as a choral jury. The writing gives him clipped phrases and commanding rests, which act like stage directions for authority.

What dramatic job does the chorus perform?

It is the verdict and the crowd. The repeated line turns community consensus into a weapon. The more it repeats, the more the audience feels the weight of "we."

Is there an official audio release?

A cast album was recorded during the Broadway run but was never issued. Fans rely on demo material and audience-sourced recordings to hear the number.

What makes the lyric distinctive within the score?

Legal language sharpened into chant. The hook is a statute, not a confession. That sets it apart from reflective numbers elsewhere in the show.

How does the music support the scene’s severity?

By refusing ornament. The groove is straight, accents are hard, and the harmony stays tight. It is written to make diction king and to keep bodies moving in lockstep.

Does the number connect to Anne Rice’s themes?

Yes. The novels often contrast private desire with public rule. This song foregrounds the rule and the price of breaking it. Desire, for once, gets shoved offstage.

What was critical response to the song at the time?

Even mixed or negative reviews of the show sometimes singled out this number as one of the sharper, more propulsive moments in Act II.

Who were the primary designers shaping how the scene looked?

Derek McLane’s set elements, Susan Hilferty’s costuming, and Matt West’s musical staging combined to give the tribunal an austere, ritual profile.

Is there an alternate studio version?

A demo featuring Elton John exists in circulation. It sketches the hook with more pop phrasing, while the stage version adds ensemble muscle and sharper consonants.

How does this track pair with other Act II numbers?

It sits between the fallout from Claudia’s arc and the final movements of the plot. In sound and stance it pairs with "I Want More" as the act’s most kinetic music.

Does the song have a life in concerts or covers?

Not in any formal, widely documented way. It appears occasionally in fan-compiled playlists and demo bundles, but professional covers are rare.

Awards and Chart Positions

There is no commercial chart history for this track. The production that introduced it did receive awards attention, which helps date and contextualize the song.

Additional Info

Two production facts matter for this number’s footprint. First, the cast album was recorded in New York but never released. As a result, the score survives in audience tapes and in demo form, a strange fate for a show with marquee names. Second, the show’s brief Broadway run concentrates the song’s history into spring 2006. Dates from the Palace Theatre run are precise, which is a gift when you are tracing how a track lives or vanishes.

As a performance vehicle, the piece rewards actors who understand tempo as character. Armand’s phrases beg to be spoken like charges on parchment. Letting rests sit a beat longer turns the chorus into a room looking up from the dock. Small choices - a clipped "crime," a swallowed "kind" - do a lot of narrative work. In practice, the best versions I have heard feel like a ceremony audiences stumbled into.

Press roundups from the time frame point to a production that split opinion but yielded pockets of voltage. According to Playbill, the album session was set up with respectable heat and a planned release window before plans changed. Variety’s listings underline the crew’s pedigree and the seriousness of intent. As stated in the Tony Awards records, the design and featured performance nominations sit on the historical record even as the show itself became a shorthand for dashed expectations. That is the curious legacy "To Kill Your Kind" carries: a hard, memorable rule from a short-lived world.

Sources: Playbill; IBDB; Wikipedia; Tony Awards; Variety; CurtainUp; StageAgent; Ovrtur; BroadwayWorld.