“Too Sweet,” Hozier’s new single from his latest EP ‘Unheard,’ explores his opposition to more saccharine flavors of budding love.
follow our Today’s Song(s) playlist
Stream: “Too Sweet” – Hozier
I take my whiskey neat, my coffee black in my bed at three. You’re too sweet for me…
Ireland’s own Andrew Hozier-Byrne, better known as Hozier, made a swift return this March with his newly released EP, Unheard. The four-track comes after the recent release of a full length album in August 2023.
The four-song project serves as a final taster of the August release and delves further into Hozier’s creative interpretation of Dante’s Inferno and the nine circles of hell.
In a Twitter video posted on March 22, 2024, the singer/songwriter gave fans a bit of background saying if “Too Sweet” had made it onto the full-length album, it would have been placed inside the third circle, ‘“gluttony.”
To say the song was highly anticipated is an understatement: With TikTok as one of the major tellers of a song’s popularity, there are (at the time of this writing) almost 40,000 and counting posts using the ringing chorus of “Too Sweet” as their background.
Listening to the rhythmic percussion and the edgy guitar, it’s easy to get lost in the melody despite the song’s stark and slightly sarcastic meaning. A deeper look at the lyrics hints at something more:
“It can’t be said I’m an early bird.
It’s 10 o’clock before I say a word.
Baby, I can never tell, how do you sleep so well?
You keep tellin’ me to live right,
to go to bed before the daylight.
But then you wake up for the sunrise.
You know you don’t gotta pretend…”
Hozier then takes the chorus to lay down the law, letting his partner know that they just might be a touch too innocent for his way of life.
“Don’t you just wanna wake up
Dark as a lake
Smellin’ like a bonfire
Lost in a haze?
If you’re drunk on life, babe
I think that’s great
But while in this world…”
Vocally, “Too Sweet” fits perfectly into Hozier’s broader collection of work.
Ironically, there’s a sweetness to his tone that hums through the song, with classic Hozier-coined harmonies that melt through the brassiness of the instrumentals that patch together the verses and the chorus. Something about it makes it hard to keep from dancing, even through the grittiness of the second verse.
“I aim low, I am true,
And the ground’s where I go
I work late where I’m free from the phone
And the job gets done
But you worry some, I know…”
Using one’s romantic preferences as an exploration of self-indulgence attests to Hozier’s skill in painting more than one picture with the words he so poetically writes. The listener takes the singer’s word as law, with Hozier driving his point home with one last visit from the catchy chorus,
“I take my whiskey neat,
my coffee black in my bed at three.
You’re too sweet for me…”
The triumphant return of the Internet-proclaimed “Irish Jesus” has earned him yet another No. 1 across several US charts – his last No. 1 being his debut single “Take Me to Church.” With an equally successful tour run that most recently brought him to Latin America, it’s safe to say, at the very least, that life is pretty sweet for Hozier.
— —
:: stream/purchase Unheard here ::
:: connect with Hozier here ::
Stream: “Too Sweet” – Hozier
— — — —
Connect to Hozier on
Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Instagram
Discover new music on Atwood Magazine
© Ruth Medjber
© Ruth Medjber
:: Today’s Song(s) ::
follow our daily playlist on Spotify
:: Stream Hozier ::
