Watch Hozier Perform ‘Too Sweet,’ Pogues’ ‘Fairytale of New York’

Hozier’s second Saturday Night Live musical guest appearances saw performances of “Too Sweet”, his 2024 standout, and of the Pogues’ 1987 song “Fairytale of New York”.

The Irish singer who debuted on SNL in 2014 playing her award-winning debut single “Take Me to Church”, began with “Too Sweet”, a “hard, catchy retro-R&B groove” which Rolling Stone wrote when he placed it at number 17 on our list of the best songs of the first half of the year.

Hozier’s latest EP, unheard of, which he released in March, contains four songs originally intended for Unreal Unearthhis 2023 studio album. One of them was “Too Sweet”, the creation of which he described to Rolling Stone in a recent interview, as well as his decision to leave it off the album.

“Maybe it’s the pessimist in me,” he said. “I thought, ‘People don’t want to hear this, we’ll just put it away’.”

The song turned out to be his most popular single since “Take Me to Church”.

Hozier returned to the stage later with a cover of the Irish folk ballad, which the Pogues wrote as a duet and which appeared on their album If I should fall from God’s grace. The Christmas-themed track has performed particularly well around bank holidays in the UK and Ireland since around the turn of the century.

Hozier wrapped his Unreal Unearth tour in New Zealand last month, and his most recent US gig was in September at Maryland’s All Things Go Music Festival. Currently his next scheduled date in the states is in Milwaukee in June.