Top 10 Hozier Songs

Feature Photo: Ben Houdijk / Shutterstock.com

Andrew John Hozier-Byrne, known professionally as Hozier, was born on March 17, 1990, in County Wicklow, Ireland. His mother, Raine Hozier-Byrne, is an artist, while his father, John Byrne, was a blues drummer. Growing up in a creative household gave Hozier an early connection to visual art, gospel, blues, soul, and the power of storytelling through music.

Hozier taught himself guitar, sang in school choirs, and later studied music education at Trinity College Dublin. He left the program to pursue recording opportunities and performed with the Trinity Orchestra and the Irish choral ensemble Anúna. Those experiences helped shape the enormous vocal arrangements and spiritual intensity that would later define his own work.

His breakthrough arrived in 2013 with “Take Me to Church,” a song he initially recorded as a demo in the attic of his family home. The recording became a worldwide success, while its stark black-and-white video drew attention to homophobic violence and the persecution of LGBTQ+ people. Hozier’s self-titled debut album followed in 2014 and established him as one of the most distinctive singer-songwriters of his generation.

After completing years of touring, Hozier returned with the 2018 EP Nina Cried Power and the 2019 album Wasteland, Baby!. The album debuted at number one in both Ireland and the United States. His third studio album, Unreal Unearth, arrived in 2023 and used Dante’s Inferno as a loose framework for songs about love, loss, language, isolation, and survival. It became his first number-one album in the United Kingdom.

Hozier expanded that era with the Unheard EP and the deluxe collection Unreal Unearth: Unending. The song “Too Sweet” became his first number-one single on both the Billboard Hot 100 and the United Kingdom’s Official Singles Chart in 2024, making it impossible to leave out of an updated list of his finest work.

Hozier’s music blends folk, blues, gospel, rock, soul, and Irish musical traditions. His lyrics frequently draw upon religion, mythology, poetry, social justice, romantic desire, and the tension between personal freedom and institutional power. Here are our ten favorite Hozier songs.

# 10 – “Movement”

“Movement” was released on November 14, 2018, and later appeared on Hozier’s second studio album, Wasteland, Baby!. The song began as a piano-driven composition before developing into a sweeping mixture of gospel, soul, and R&B.

Hozier uses images of dance, water, trees, and physical motion to describe the effect another person has on him. He does not merely watch the subject move. Her presence changes the atmosphere around her and pulls an emotional response from everyone who sees her.

The arrangement starts with restraint and gradually expands through layered vocals, percussion, and gospel harmonies. Hozier’s voice rises with the music until the song feels less like an observation and more like surrender.

The music video stars dancer Sergei Polunin and was directed by Chris Barrett and Luke Taylor. Polunin’s expressive performance gives physical form to the song’s central idea: movement can communicate desire, pain, beauty, and transformation without speaking a word.

# 9 – “Sedated”

“Sedated” appeared on Hozier’s self-titled debut album and was released as a single in 2014. The song combines indie rock, soul, piano, and gospel-inspired backing vocals while examining addiction, emotional numbness, and destructive forms of escape.

The title does not refer only to drugs. Hozier describes people attempting to dull pain through substances, desire, distraction, and relationships that offer temporary relief without solving the underlying problem.

The piano carries an almost uplifting quality, but the lyrics move in the opposite direction. Images of poison, shadows, decay, and suffocation make it clear that the comfort being offered is dangerous.

“Sedated” reached number three on the Irish Singles Chart. Its success helped demonstrate that Hozier’s audience was interested in far more than one breakthrough single. The track remains one of the darkest and most compelling songs from his debut period.

# 8 – “Nina Cried Power” Featuring Mavis Staples

Hozier released “Nina Cried Power” on September 6, 2018, as the title track from his comeback EP. It later opened the album Wasteland, Baby!. The song features the unmistakable voice of gospel and soul legend Mavis Staples.

The track honors musicians who used their work to confront injustice. Hozier name-checks artists including Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Marvin Gaye, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, and Staples herself.

The title draws upon Nina Simone’s performance of “Sinnerman” and its declaration that she cried power. Hozier’s message is that protest music is not simply about making noise. It is about awakening people, carrying memory forward, and refusing to remain passive.

Staples brings historical authority to the recording because she participated directly in the civil rights era that the song celebrates. Her voice and Hozier’s work together beautifully over piano, organ, drums, guitar, and gospel harmonies.

The music video was directed by Patrick Ryan and Hozier’s brother, Jon Hozier-Byrne. It features Irish activists listening and reacting to the song, placing contemporary struggles beside the musical legacy honored in the lyrics.

# 7 – “From Eden”

“From Eden” first appeared on Hozier’s 2014 EP of the same name and was later included on his debut album. The song reached number two on the Irish Singles Chart and became one of the recordings that established his identity beyond “Take Me to Church.”

The lyrics present love through the voice of a morally compromised narrator. He is fascinated by someone who seems innocent and radiant, but he approaches that person with temptation, selfishness, and danger already attached to him.

Hozier again uses religious imagery without turning the song into a traditional religious statement. Eden becomes a symbol for purity that has already been lost, while the narrator sounds like someone arriving from outside paradise with no intention of pretending to be innocent.

The song’s rhythmic guitar and warm vocal melody make it inviting, even as the lyrics remain unsettling. That contrast is central to Hozier’s writing. Beauty and danger often appear in the same place.

# 6 – “Almost (Sweet Music)”

“Almost (Sweet Music)” appeared on Wasteland, Baby! and was released as a single in 2019. The handclaps, acoustic guitar, rhythmic vocal delivery, and gospel-style harmonies give the song an immediate sense of movement.

The lyrics are filled with references to jazz standards and the musicians who performed them. Hozier weaves song titles and familiar phrases into a new romantic story, paying tribute to the music that shaped his understanding of rhythm, melody, and emotional expression.

Rather than feeling like a list of references, the song flows naturally. The jazz titles become part of the narrator’s language as he thinks about a relationship that is close to happiness but never entirely secure.

“Almost (Sweet Music)” reached the Top 10 in Ireland and became one of the most popular tracks from Hozier’s second album. Its joyful surface and sophisticated construction make it one of his easiest songs to enjoy repeatedly.

# 5 – “Someone New”

“Someone New” was included on Hozier’s 2014 debut album and released as a single in 2015. Hozier co-wrote the song with Sallay-Matu Garnett.

The track examines the habit of becoming briefly fascinated with strangers. Its narrator falls in love with possibility rather than lasting intimacy, repeatedly imagining connections with people he barely knows.

Hozier has described the song as a love song about love at its emptiest. The buoyant melody, pizzicato bass, guitar, and layered choir make the behavior sound playful, but a sense of loneliness sits underneath the romantic wandering.

The music video stars Natalie Dormer as a woman moving through London while imagining a series of encounters with strangers. The fantasy sequences reinforce the idea that desire can become a substitute for genuine connection.

“Someone New” reached number 13 in Ireland and became a substantial international success. Its polished pop-soul arrangement demonstrates how naturally Hozier could move between darker blues material and a more accessible radio sound.

# 4 – “Tell It to My Heart” by Meduza Featuring Hozier

Italian production group Meduza released “Tell It to My Heart” featuring Hozier in October 2021. The collaboration placed his voice inside an electronic dance production that sounded very different from the folk, blues, gospel, and rock arrangements associated with his solo albums.

Hozier’s vocal remains the emotional center of the track. He sings about a relationship in which words, behavior, and physical desire no longer agree. The narrator wants honesty before the connection disappears completely.

The pulsing production allows Hozier’s voice to move through a dance-club setting without losing its weight or character. The contrast works because Meduza leaves enough space for the vocal to build before the beat returns.

“Tell It to My Heart” reached number 10 on Billboard’s Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, number 14 on the United Kingdom’s Dance Singles Chart, and number 13 in Ireland. The recording proved that Hozier could enter contemporary electronic music without sounding like a guest pasted onto somebody else’s track.

# 3 – “Cherry Wine”

“Cherry Wine” closes the standard edition of Hozier’s debut album. The recording is a live performance built around his voice and acoustic guitar, with the sound of birds audible in the background.

The gentle music creates a disturbing contrast with the lyrics. The narrator is trapped in an abusive relationship and continues to describe the person hurting him with love, tenderness, and excuses. That contradiction captures one of the most difficult realities of domestic violence: affection and fear can exist together.

Hozier never turns the subject into a simple villain-and-victim story. He writes from inside the confusion, showing how abuse can distort a person’s understanding of loyalty, responsibility, and love.

The song was released as a charity single in 2016, with proceeds benefiting organizations that assist victims of domestic abuse. Its music video stars Saoirse Ronan and Moe Dunford and was directed by Dearbhla Walsh. The film shows a woman concealing evidence of violence while imagining moments of affection with her partner.

The quiet arrangement forces listeners to pay attention to every word. “Cherry Wine” is one of Hozier’s most painful and carefully written songs.

# 2 – “Too Sweet”

“Too Sweet” was released on March 22, 2024, as part of the Unheard EP, a collection of songs recorded during the Unreal Unearth sessions. The track later appeared on Unreal Unearth: Unending.

The song compares two people whose habits and outlooks are fundamentally different. One embraces early mornings, discipline, health, and brightness. The narrator prefers late nights, black coffee, whiskey, smoke, and a life lived outside respectable hours.

Instead of promising to change, he admits that the other person may simply be too sweet for him. Hozier delivers the idea with humor, confidence, and one of the strongest bass-driven grooves of his career.

“Too Sweet” became Hozier’s first number-one single on the Billboard Hot 100 and his first number-one hit in the United Kingdom. It also topped the Irish chart. The success was remarkable because it arrived more than a decade after “Take Me to Church” first introduced him to a worldwide audience.

The song’s enormous commercial performance did not come from abandoning his identity. Its biblical references, sensual imagery, blues influence, and fascination with appetite are unmistakably Hozier. The production simply places those familiar qualities inside an irresistible pop structure.

# 1 – “Take Me to Church”

“Take Me to Church” was Hozier’s debut single and the recording that transformed him from an emerging Irish songwriter into an international star. He developed the song while performing at open-mic nights and recorded an early demo in the attic of his family home in County Wicklow.

The song blends gospel, blues, soul, and alternative rock while using religious language to describe physical love and personal freedom. Hozier was raised in a Quaker household by parents who had left Catholicism, and he attended a Catholic school. His writing reflects the enormous cultural power the Catholic Church exercised in Ireland, particularly over sexuality and private life.

The lyrics reject institutions that describe human desire as sinful while claiming authority over the people experiencing it. Hozier turns worship language toward a relationship between two human beings, arguing that love and intimacy possess a truth that cannot be erased by doctrine.

The black-and-white music video, created by Brendan Canty and Conal Thomson, tells the story of two men targeted by a violent homophobic mob. The filmmakers drew attention to the persecution of LGBTQ+ people and the climate of institutionalized homophobia in Russia.

“Take Me to Church” reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the United Kingdom’s Official Singles Chart. It received a Grammy Award nomination for Song of the Year, and Hozier performed it with Annie Lennox during the 2015 ceremony. The Recording Industry Association of America later certified the song as Diamond.

The recording remains a cultural statement as much as a hit single. Its message, vocal performance, chorus, and fearless use of religious imagery continue to resonate. “Too Sweet” eventually surpassed it on the charts, but “Take Me to Church” remains the song that most completely represents Hozier’s artistic identity.