Hozier’s “Too Sweet”, while light-hearted in tone, especially in comparison to some of his other songs, is a masterclass in songwriting, as almost every line is packed with significance and clever metaphors, creating vivid images and a dynamic coherence to the whole lyrics. Hozier – or his “persona”, makes a slightly humorous but earnest and convincing case for living fast, and not making any compromises.
The speaker (perhaps, after all, Hozier is playing a role here) opens with a fetching statement: “It can’t be said I’m an early bird”. The negation adds a little suspension, and also puts the self-description at some distance.
This is a clever approach, because talking about yourself can sometimes paradoxically feel uncomfortably self-centered. Besides, he immediately uses a common metaphor (“early bird”), where he could have said something like “I don’t get up early”. It is a familiar metaphor, a “trope”, but the image of the bird is brought to the reader’s mind, which makes the speaker’s words visually evocative from the get-go.
The speaker then addresses his lover:
Baby, I can never tell…
and asks an ambiguous indirect question
how do you sleep so well?
As the following lines suggest that the speaker finds it hard to go to bed early, this might just suggest that his lover, on the contrary, has no problem keeping up a “healthy” sleeping cycle, but there is a faint suggestion of self-complacency and/or of hypocrisy.
His lover is judgmental: “You keep telling me to live right / To go to bed before the daylight”, which suggests a tension that the chorus is going to fully reveal. This hint of a tension is further suggested by “you don’t gotta pretend”, the speaker implying that his lover might not be entirely honest about her life principles.
The speaker counters that the healthy lifestyle his lover recommends leaves no room for what he believes is the essence of poetic living – the existential counterpart to making art – which he describes in deeply evocative terms: “Don’t you just wanna wake up, dark as a lake? / Smelling like a bonfire, lost in a haze?”
This delicately describes the sensations of a hangover, of having smoked, and certainly drunk, too much the night before. The comparisons are again very visual: the listener effortlessly imagines a still lake at night, symbolic of the depth and darkness of an artist’s soul, and the bonfire not only evokes smoke, but also a joyous, almost pagan, destructive celebration of the transience of life, as well as, perhaps a session of trance-like dancing and singing around the fire, as well as the metaphoric fire of drunkenness.
Being “drunk on life” is a cliché often found in motivational posters and Instagram posts, advertising, often in a self-righteous, virtue-signalling kind of way, the supposed delights of a healthy lifestyle. The speaker probably quotes it in a sarcastic way, only to announce that, while this wholesome, if not saint-like approach to life might be good for some, he will stick to his own choices.
The modifier “while in this world…” is very significant: the speaker doesn’t believe that adopting a saint-like behaviour in this world (as opposed to the afterlife) is what he needs: we might perhaps detect a hint that he’s not fully convinced that there is an afterlife, and that consequently, he might as well enjoy himself the way he sees fit.
The chorus is an affirmation of the “unhealthy”, uncompromising choices that the speaker makes: “I think I’ll take my whiskey neat / My coffee black and my bed at three / You’re too sweet for me”
He won’t add water to his whisky, as many do, so he won’t “water down” his habits; he has his coffee free of sugar, preferring the strong, bitter taste of the “unadulterated” beverage. A clever zeugma follows: to take one’s bed is an old-fashioned expression meaning “to go to bed”: this adds an element of surprise, but also of humour.
The speaker will go to bed late, whether his lover like it or not. This chorus sounds like a rebellion against the ubiquitous discourse of wellness and health, which may, to some, sound self-righteous and oppressive.
In the second verse, the speaker justifies his choices with reasons that diverge from pure hedonism. There is a sense of humbleness and groundedness: “I aim low / I aim true and the ground’s where I go”, but also of self-deprecation.
The speaker has low expectations about himself and about his art, perhaps (he speaks of “work” and “job” further down), but feels like such expectations are more realistic, and that this attitude is more faithful to his nature.
But the expression “the ground’s where I go” has multiple layers – something Hozier is particularly adept at. It may mean that his approach to life and to art is down-to-earth and lucid, but also that, after all, he’ll end up in the ground, i.e. in the grave, like everybody else. Which, again, justifies not taking things too seriously and seizing the day.
The speaker explains the practical reasons why he prefers to work late: he’s free from distractions, and can achieve what he wants “I work late where I’m free from the phone / And the job gets done”.
Productivity is not his sole concern, however. He has made his peace with his mortality: “But who wants to live forever, babe?” and sarcastically describes how his lover refuses to eat or drink things that might damage her health, or even corrupt her morally: “You treat your mouth as if it’s Heaven’s gate”.
Pushing the metaphor further, but also subverting it, Hozier jokingly suggests that his lover exerts drastic control over what she allows into her body, much like the TSA – the U.S. agency in charge of overseeing airport security, among other things – limits what passengers can carry with them through an airport’s “gate” and into a plane.
The speaker wouldn’t mind travelling with his lover on this metaphorical journey, but, we are led to assume, the conditions are too demanding: “I wish I could go along, babe, don’t get me wrong”.
After being critical about his lover, the speaker concedes that she has undeniable charms, with three lines that sound as if he’s making amends for the severity of his previous statements: “You know you’re bright as the morning, as soft as the rain”.
But here again, he can’t help but describe his lover’s appeal in terms evocative of wine and hence, of drunkenness:
“Pretty as a vine, as sweet as a grape / If you can sit in a barrel, maybe I’ll wait”.
This sounds half like an encouragement, a perspective for potential reconciliation, and half as a kind of veiled threat.
If his lover doesn’t age like good wine, and lets go of her immature (to the speaker) straight-edgedness, he might lose interest in her. And in the meantime, he’ll drink his whisky and his coffee the way he pleases, and go to bed whenever he wants.
All in all, the song works like a kind of demonstration that can bring to mind the intellectual agility of so-called metaphysical poets like John Donne or Andrew Marvell. They sometimes addressed their poems to a lover, in a form that combined playful reproach, rational plea, and opened to a possible reconciliation of conflicting interests or needs.
The lyrical cohesiveness and economy of means that Hozier displays, combined with the originality of his topic, make this an admirable example of memorable songwriting.
The Lyrics Doctor 
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