Since 2013, the world has known Hozier as the tall Irish singer who wrote “Take Me to Church”. That song became an overnight success, propelling Andrew Hozier-Byrne to stardom, and to this day, it’s a global hit. But, surprisingly, the song never reached the top of the charts.
The singer-songwriter continued to have an incredible career, and now, three records in, he’s an established name in the music industry. But ten years after releasing his debut album, a happy accident landed him his first number one. When one of the songs that had been left out of his latest album was accidentally leaked, Hozier got another unexpected, overnight hit.
How “Too Sweet” Accidentally Became a Hit
His latest record, Unreal Unearth, came out in 2023. With 16 songs, inspired by Dante’s Inferno, the record is considered by many fans to be his best work yet. But even with that many songs, there were still a lot of unreleased tracks that Hozier liked, so he decided to put out some EPs to let fans hear them. Little did he know that one of the songs he’d deemed not worthy of being on the album would become his greatest hit to date.
During an interview for the promotion of his EP, Unheard, a snippet of the chorus of the song “Too Sweet” was accidentally leaked, and even though it was only a few seconds, it set something in motion. Fans heard the short clip of the song and went crazy. Hozier’s team reportedly scrambled to get it taken down, but the snippet had already been recorded and shared on TikTok, building up the anticipation for the release of the full song, which came two weeks later.
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Hozier was not upset about the leak, and when he saw the impact that it had on the success of the song, he called it a blessing. “If we had planned (to release it), it probably wouldn’t have worked out so well,” he explained.
“But the fact that listening to it at the time, that people knew they weren’t meant to have this, that it was a mistake and then taken offline, I think was part of the excitement of it as well.”
He went on to explain that he never expects any of his songs to perform so well, so he’s always surprised when it happens. “I never write songs with the intention of whether it’s going to reach a lot of people and that was the same with “Take Me to Church”, that was a surprise, unlikely hit. For this to cap 10 years of a career, it’s really cool.” Shortly after its release, “Too Sweet” reached number 1 on the American charts, making him the first Irish artist to do this since Sinead O’Connor in 1990.
Hozier Didn’t Think Too Highly of the Song
While Hozier likes the song and is happy about its success, he wouldn’t say it was one of his favorites. In fact, it wasn’t even deemed good enough to go on the album, in his eyes. Hozier is a beekeeper from rural Ireland who did weekly virtual poetry readings for his fans during the pandemic. Most of his songs have a depth and poetic sense that “Too Sweet” doesn’t have, and while fans embraced the track instantly, the lyrics were shockingly different from what people are used to getting from Hozier.
“I mean, it’s a song about somebody who wants to self-destruct and get trashed! You know, I’ve had a quiet laugh to myself about that,” he said about the song. “I’ve written songs that definitely deal with more complicated, more difficult themes, for sure.”
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He understands, however, that its lighthearted nature might have been the key to its success. “I guess it’s something that’s fun and immediate and doesn’t take itself too seriously, and that’s part of its appeal,” he acknowledges. Which is, ironically, the reason he didn’t include it in Unreal Unearth in the first place.
“Initially, when the choice came of putting it on the album, I thought that maybe it wouldn’t have worked. But there you go.”
Hozier also revealed that the song would have had a specific spot on the album. As explained previously, the record was inspired by Dante’s Inferno, and the theme of the album is the nine circles of hell. Each song belongs to one circle, and had it been included on Unreal Unearth, “Too Sweet” would have been part of the circle of gluttony. The song that replaced it, “Eat Your Young”, is “a more macabre voice that deals with the slightly more serious, real-world issue of selling out the future of the youth,” Hozier explained, which is “why it was chosen for the album” instead of “Too Sweet”.