Those who are not deep into the lore of Irish singer-songwriter Hozier — full name Andrew Hozier Byrne — are likely best familiar with him for one of these things: his Top 10 U.S.-charting songs “Take Me to Church” and “Too Sweet,” or his distinctive “Hozier Yell”:
@jaymescrib Caught Hoziers first Northern Attitude yell back in 2023 🥹 #noahkahan #hozier #northernattitude ♬ Northern Attitude – Noah Kahan & Hozier
However, diehard fans of Hozier will be quick to tell you that the soulful bogman of rock n’ roll has a musical catalog rich with powerful instrumentation and deeply layered lyricism. Drawing inspiration from folk, soul, and blues, his songs are filled with detailed imagery, literary references, and more often than not, a sex appeal that can leave the listener hot under the collar. That’s why we’re here to argue the case that if you are a fan of romance reads, you simply must stop sleeping on the song stylings of Mr. Byrne.
To better lay out our findings, we’re going to break down some of Hozier’s most romantic — and sexiest — songs by romance subgenre and/or trope, and explore the specific lyrics that get us feeling the heat.
Golden Retriever Energy: “To Noise Making (Sing),” “Nobody,” and “First Light”
Let’s start things on the lighter side: for anyone who’s a fan of the wholesome vibe that “golden retriever” or “cinnamon roll” main characters bring to a romantic story, some of Hozier’s more lighthearted lyrics will be right up your alley. For instance, consider “To Noise Making (Sing),” his joyful treatise on how making music can lead us through the tough times:
“You don’t have to sing it right
But who could call you wrong?
To put your emptiness to melody
Your awful heart to song
You don’t have to sing it nice, but honey, sing it strong
At best, you’ll find a little remedy
At worst, the world will sing along”
— Hozier, “To Noise Making (Sing)“
There’s also “Nobody,” Hozier’s cheerful ode to the distant lover of a travelling musician. While the singer recounts the wild misadventures of their life on the road, including dancing “real slow with Rockettes on dodgy molly” and warming their “hands over a burnin’ Maserati,” they find that nothing can compare to simply being loved by their sweetheart:
“If I had the choice between hearing either noise
The excitement of a thousand, or the soothing of your voice
At first chance, I’d take the bed warmed by the body”
— Hozier, “Nobody“
This ebullient romantic energy is truly underscored in “First Light,” which follows the speaker’s thoughts as they wake up beside their lover for the first time. Marvelling at the simple pleasures of their partner filling a coffee cup as the dawn breaks, the excitement and hope in Hozier’s lyrics are palpable:
“Your eyes open at first, a thousand miles away
But turnin’ shoot a silver bullet point-blank range
And I can scarce believe what I’m believin’ in
Could this be how every day begins?”
— Hozier, “First Light“
They Fall Hard: “To Someone From a Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe),” “Movement,” and “I, Carrion (Icarian)”
For book lovers who are drawn to main characters who fall first, fast, and hard for their love interests, Hozier’s got you covered there as well. For instance, “To Someone From a Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe)” from his album Unreal, Unearth is a double-whammy: it not only features a quite sexy nod to the Irish language, but a heartfelt (almost adorably sheepish) description of how intuitive it felt to fall in love with their partner:
“I wish I could say the cold lake water of my heart
Christ, it’s boilin’ over
But it happened easy, darlin’
Natural as another leg around you in the bed frame”
— Hozier, “To Someone From a Warm Climate (Uiscefhuaraithe)“
Likewise, in “Movement,” Hozier’s lyrics describe watching the object of the singer’s affections as being so beautiful when they dance that it feels as though they shake the very earth:
“You are the rite of movement
Its reasonin’ made lucid and cool
And though it’s no improvement
When you move, I move
You’re less Polunin leapin’
Or Fred Astaire in sequins
Honey, you, you’re Atlas in his sleepin’
And when you move, I’m moved”
— Hozier, “Movement“
But if we’re talking about falling and falling hard, we have to talk about the stunning lyrics of “I, Carrion (Icarian),” which liken falling in love to the fatal flight of Icarus:
“If these heights should bring my fall
Let me be your own
Icarian carrion
If the wind turns, if I hit a squall
Allow the ground to find its brutal way to me”
— Hozier, “I, Carrion (Icarian)“
While mentioning the possibility of plummeting to one’s death may not ring romantic for everyone, most who have been in love can agree that it takes a leap of faith to do so. What makes Hozier’s lyrics particularly affecting is that the singer insists that even if they fall, they would still rather have taken the risk of flying toward the sun (i.e., their love).
Slow Burn: “Shrike,” “As It Was,” and “Abstract (Psychopomp)”
Nobody, but nobody, writes songs about yearning quite like Hozier. So, if your romance tastes run to the slowest of burns, his catalog’s got something for you, too:
“I couldn’t utter my love when it counted
Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ’bout it now
And I couldn’t whisper when you needed it shouted
Ah, but I’m singing like a bird ’bout it now
Words hung above but never would form
Like a cry at the final breath that is drawn
Remember me, love, when I’m reborn
As the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn”
— Hozier, “Shrike“
These lyrics, from the album Wasteland, Baby!’s “Shrike,” use the somewhat brutal imagery of a shrike — birds known for impaling their prey on thorny vegetation. While perhaps grotesque to some, the singer is saying that, despite their past inability to proclaim their love, they are freely expressing now that they could not survive without the object of their affection.
A similar sentiment is explored in “As It Was”:
“Tell me if, somehow, some of it remains
How long you would wait for me and how long I’ve been away
The shape that I’m in now, your shape in the doorway
Make your good love known to me or just tell me ’bout your day”
— Hozier, “As It Was“
Earlier in the song, Hozier’s lyrics reference an “otherness” that pulled the lovers apart, as all great slow burn stories must have. Now that the singer has returned to their loved one, they are hoping that there is love left enough to save their relationship.
And lastly, the song “Abstract (Psychopomp)” offers a yearning that haunts the speaker, describing a moment — or, more accurately, an “abstract” — in which the singer watched their former lover rush into traffic to comfort an injured animal in its final moments:
““I remember the view, streetlights in the dark blue
The moment I knew I’d no choice but to love you”
— Hozier, “Abstract (Psychopomp)“
The singer speaks with fond sadness of this moment, and it’s clear that they pine for their love long after the relationship has ended, with the memory acting as the haunting echo of that love:
“Darling, there’s a part of me
I’m afraid will always be
Trapped within an abstract from a moment of my life”
— Hozier, “Abstract (Psychopomp)“
Baddies, Rogues, and Scoundrels: “Too Sweet,” “Talk,” and “Arsonist’s Lullabye”
Be it a bad boy, bad girl, or simply a baddie, there’s something about the love interests who are just a little bit naughty. Not to worry, Hozier’s lyrics have you covered there as well, such as in the bluesy testament to the party life, “Too Sweet”:
“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
Baby, now and then
Don’t you just wanna wake up, dark as a lake
Smellin’ like a bonfire, lost in a haze?”
— Hozier, “Too Sweet“
Equally roguish is the chorus of “Talk, “ a ballad that starts out comparing the singer’s lover to the devotion of Orpheus before admitting that all of their pretty words are a cover for how badly they want to seduce the listener:
“I won’t deny I’ve got in my mind now
All the things I would do
So I try to talk refined for fear that you find out
How I’m imaginin’ you”
— Hozier, “Talk“
And of course, for the truly naughty, there’s the haunting chorus of the evocatively-titled “Arsonist’s Lullaby”:
“All you have is your fire
And the place you need to reach
Don’t you ever tame your demons
But always keep them on a leash”
— Hozier, “Arsonist’s Lullaby“
Dark Romance: “Hymn to Virgil,” “From Eden,” and “NFWMB”
Not far from your basic baddie, however, are the truly devilish tropes of romance: the morally gray, darkly seductive characters who are willing to set the world on fire for the one they desire. And as it so happens, Hozier’s lyrics describe doing just that in “Hymn to Virgil”:
“You tell me the sun is shining in paradise
And I have to watch your lips turn blue
I would burn the world to bring some heat to you”
— Hozier, “Hymn to Virgil“
More than a few of the characters in Hozier’s songs speak from a darker heart, and the type of love that is not afraid to test the boundaries of morality. “From Eden,” from Hozier’s self-titled debut album, not only references the capping off a picnic date with the murder of the lover’s “other man,” but cheekily intimates that the singer is the devil themself:
“Honey, you’re familiar like my mirror years ago
Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on his sword
Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me, I should know
I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door”
— Hozier, “From Eden“
Indeed, not only do Hozier’s lyrics take the voice of a morally gray partner, but they are eager to pay homage to the same. In “NFWMB” — an abbreviation of “Nothing F**** with My Baby” — the singer lavishes praise on their terrifyingly powerful beloved while also swearing complete fidelity to the point of self-sacrifice:
“If I was born as a blackthorn tree
I’d wanna be felled by you
Held by you
Fuel the pyre of your enemies”
— Hozier, “NFWMB“
Hot & Spicy: “Dinner & Diatribes,” “To Be Alone,” and “Moment’s Silence (Common Tongue)”
While plenty prefer their romances clean (no judgment from us!), plenty in the readership know that there’s nothing quite so tantalizing as when the creator knows exactly when and how to turn up the heat:
“Your friends are a fate that befell me
Hell is the talkin’ type
I’d suffer hell if you’d tell me
What you’d do to me tonight
[…]
Honey, I laugh when it sinks in
A pillar I am, upright
Scarcely can speak for my thinkin’
What you’d do to me tonight”
— Hozier, “Dinner & Diatribes“
As one can tell from the lyrics of “Dinner & Diatribes,” Hozier’s lyrics aren’t afraid to get a little spicy in his lyrics. Yet let many a romance author, he also enjoys exploring how desire and erotica can be expressed via poetic language. For instance, in “To Be Alone,” the singer explains that making love with their paramour is the only time they feel truly alive:
“All I’ve ever done is hide
From our times when you’re near me
Honey, when you kill the lights and kiss my eyes
I feel like a person for a moment of my life”
— Hozier, “To Be Alone“
Lastly, there is perhaps Hozier’s sexiest song, “Moment’s Silence (Common Tongue),” both an ode to the joys — and a social deconstruction — of oral sex. In these lyrics, Hozier questions why this act is seen as an exertion of power when the singer views it as sexual devotion:
“What yields the need for those who lead us oh-so morally
Those that would view the same we do through their deformity
Who view the deed as power’s creed as pure authority
This moment’s silence when my baby puts the mouth on me”
— Hozier, “Moment’s Silence (Common Tongue)“
We don’t know about you, but there’s nothing sexier than a touch of patriarchy-smashing while talking about… er, smashin‘.
Gothic Romantasy: “It Will Come Back,” “Like Real People Do,” and “In A Week”
For an artist whose fans regularly compare him to a faerie king, it’s no surprise that several of Hozier’s songs also include a bit of fable and folklore. A good example is “It Will Come Back,” which equates the singer’s desire for their lover as a beastly entity:
“I know who I am when I’m alone
I’m something else when I see you
You don’t understand, you should never know
How easy you are to need
Don’t let me in with no intention to keep me
Jesus Christ, don’t be kind to me
Honey, don’t feed me, I will come back”
— Hozier, “It Will Come Back“
And of course, there’s the song that started the “bogman” meme of the Hozier fandom, “Like Real People Do,” in which the singer reminisces about being pulled from the earth by their sweetheart:
“Why were you digging? What did you bury
Before those hands pulled me from the earth?
I will not ask you where you came from
I will not ask, and neither should you
Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips
We should just kiss like real people do”
— Hozier, “Like Real People Do“
Finally, for those who enjoy a little morbidity in their love stories, there’s his duet with Karen Cowley, “In A Week,” which is sung from the point of view of two dead lovers lying in a field as they decompose:
“We lay here for years or for hours
Thrown here or found, to freeze or to thaw
So long, we’d become the flowers
Two corpses we were, two corpses I saw
And they’d find us in a week
When the weather gets hot
After the insects have made their claim
I’d be home with you, I’d be home with you”
— Hozier, “In A Week“
Macabre? Absolutely. But hey, what’s more romantic than wanting to spend eternity beside the one you love?
Ever After: “Francesca,” “Better Love,” and “Work Song”
Speaking of eternity, Hozier’s lyrics are not afraid to extend that kind of dedication into the afterlife — or, indeed, the underworld:
“Do you think I’d give up?
That this might’ve shook the love from me
Or that I was on the brink?
How could you think, darlin’, I’d scare so easily?
Now that it’s done
There’s not one thing that I would change
My life was a storm since I was born
How could I fear any hurricane?”
— Hozier, “Francesca“
“Francesca” is told from the perspective of Francesca da Rimini, a character in Dante’s Divine Comedy who was based on a real-life noblewoman who was murdered alongside her lover for their affair. The lyrics assure Francesca’s beloved that their tragic end was worth the love they had known in life. His lyrics explore a similar sort of eternality in “Better Love”:
“I have never loved a darker blue
Then the darkness I have known in you
Honed from you
You whose heart would sing in anarchy
You who’d laugh at meanings, guarantees
So beautifully
When our truth is burned from history
By those who figure justice in fond memory
Witness me
Like fire weeping from a cedar tree
Know that my love would burn with me
Or live eternally”
— Hozier, “Better Love“
Last but not least, the lyrics of “Work Song” profess constant and undying love for the singer’s darling that they would seek them out even past the point of death:
“When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold, dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I’ll crawl home to her”
— Hozier, “Work Song“
After all, no matter the trope or genre, most romance fans are looking for that oh-so-satisfying, happily-ever-after ending, and those are the types of love stories that Hozier’s lyrics do best.
Love songs, like romance books, can often feel like a dime a dozen. Yet when you find that perfect story, it can feel revelatory. And romance lovers, that’s precisely what the songs of Hozier do: attract, charm, titillate, and leave you with the cozy comfort and the hope of lasting love.
For more thoughts on how music and reading make the perfect pair, check out our article on Why Pairing Books With Music Is Important.
To read stories that beautifully weave the worlds of music and literature together, check out our Bookshop bookshelf.
