It's perfectly fine to enjoy music simply for how it sounds. However, for me, well-composed lyrics add another level of beauty and dimension.
Hozier has been one of my favorite artists for years but was only recently that I really started paying attention to and analyzing his lyrics.
I love his use of imagery and references to nature in almost every song. He crafts simple words into intricate lyrics that forces you to reconsider the nature of life, death, love, and society. .
Whether you've heard these songs or not, please enjoy some of my favorite, Pulitzer-worthy lines.
1. Take Me to Church
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVjiKRfKpPI
There is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin
In the madness and soil of that sad earthly scene
Only then I am human
Only then I am clean
2. Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene
Feeling more human and hooked on her flesh I
Lay my heart down with the rest at her feet
Fresh from the fields, all fetor and fertile
It's bloody and raw, but I swear it is sweet
3. Jackie and Wilson
Lord, it'd be great to find a place we could escape sometime
Me and my Isis growing black irises in the sunshine
Every version of me dead and buried in the yard outside
Sit back and watch the world go by
4. Someone New
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPJSsAr2iu0
There's an art to life's distractions
To somehow escape the burning weight
The art of scraping through
5. To Be Alone
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcDxk9CSTo8
Never felt too good in crowds
With folks around
When they're playing
The anthems of rape culture loud
6. From Eden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI0wUoCLnLk
Innocence died screaming
Honey, ask me, I should know
I slithered here from Eden
Just to sit outside your door
7. In a Week
https://unsplash.com/photos/oXo6IvDnkqc
I have never known peace like the damp grass that yields to me
I have never known hunger like these insects that feast on me
A thousand teeth and yours among them, I know
Our hunger's appeased
Our heart beats becoming slow
8. Sedated
You and I are nursing on a poison that never stung
Our teeth and lungs are lined with the scum of it
Some whiff of this, death and guts
9. Cherry Wine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdSCCwtNEjA
Her fight and fury is fiery
Oh, but she loves like also to the freezing
Sweet and right and merciful
I'm all but washed in the tide of her breathing
10. In the Woods Somewhere
https://unsplash.com/photos/4k-U1Wp2d00
I clutched my life and wished it kept
My dearest love, I'm not done yet
How many years I know I'll bear
I found something in the woods somewhere
11. Run
Rare is this love, keep it covered
I need you to run to me, lover
Run until you feel your lungs bleeding
12. Almost (Sweet Music)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJ9IX4zgyLs
The very thought of you and I am blue?
A love supreme seems far removed
I get along without you very well some other nights
13. No Plan
Let it hurt
Let the awful song be heard
Blue bird, I know your beat baby
But your secret is safe with me
Cause if secrets were like seeds
Keep my body from the fire
Hire a gardener for my grave
14. Nobody
I'd be appalled if I saw you ever try to be a saint
I wouldn't fall for someone I thought couldn't misbehave
But I want you to know that I've had no love like your love
15. To Noise Making (Sing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=We-mIWLT5DI
Who could ask you be unbroken or be brave again?
Or honey, hope even on this side of the grave again?
And who could ask you to be sound or to feel safe again?
Well stick around until you hear that music play again
16. Shrike
I was highest by your warm, but I was transformed
By your grounded and giving and darkening scorn
Remember me, love, when I'm reborn
As the shrike to your sharp and glorious thorn
17. Talk
Marvelin' at God
Before he feels alone one final time
And marries the sea
Imagine bein' loved by me
18. Would That I
With each love I cut loose I was never the same
Watching still living roots be consumed by the flame
I was fixed on your hand of gold
Laying waste to my lovin' long ago
19. Sunlight
https://unsplash.com/photos/SKi_z1UqAIQ
Each day, you rise with me
Know that I would gladly be
The Icarus to your certainty
Oh, my sunlight
20. Wasteland, Baby!
nd that day we'll watch
The death of the sun
To the cloud and the cold
And those jeans you'll have on
And you'll gaze unafraid
As they sob from the city roofs
Wasteland, baby!
I'm in love with you