A Song That Opens With a Ticking Clock — U-KNOW's 'Time's Tickin''

In three lines

• TVXQ's U-KNOW released a new single, 'Time's Tickin'', on July 20.
• It's a pop dance track with a ticking clock driven right through it.
• Twenty-three years into his career, he takes on time head-on.

It opens with a ticking clock

The first thing you hear when the track starts is a clock. Tick, tick. A beat settles on top of it, and then U-KNOW's voice comes in. The title is 'Time's Tickin'', so the song pushes the title through the sound itself.

The genre is pop dance — fast, with real momentum. The music video drives it too, with group choreography in the middle of a night city. This isn't a song you sit still for; your body reacts before you do.

Songs that use a clock as rhythm are rarer than you'd think. Usually the sound brushes past as atmosphere and disappears. Here it's pulled in as the backbone. The second hand becomes the beat, so the sense that time is moving follows you through the whole track.

'Time', sung 23 years in

U-KNOW debuted in 2003. This year makes it 23 years. When someone like that releases a song called 'Time's Tickin'', it carries a different weight. 'Time' sung by someone just starting out and 'time' sung by someone who has held the same ground for over 20 years are the same word at different temperatures.

Last November he released his first full-length album, 'I-KNOW', and this single arrives about eight months later. He performed the song live for the first time at his first solo concert, held just before release, under a concept of 'young Yunho meeting future Yunho' — putting the time he has come through and the present on one stage.

U-KNOW took part in writing the lyrics. The composition came from an overseas team led by Ross James. Given the subject, his name sitting on the lyric credit reads naturally.

Don't skip the B-side

There are two tracks on this single: the title track 'Time's Tickin'' and 'An Ordinary Story'.

'An Ordinary Story' is a ballad carried by quiet piano and strings — the exact opposite of the sprinting title track. Run through the fast one, then let this ballad slow your breathing. Two opposite temperatures sit inside one single.

Because it's a short single with only two songs, the contrast lands harder. On a full album that drop would be buried between other tracks; here they're right next to each other. The titles do it too — 'Time's Tickin'' and 'An Ordinary Story'. The grand and the plain, bundled as a set.

Discovery note

Play it in the middle of a busy day. The ticking will steady you rather than rush you. Listening to a song about time exactly when time is chasing you — on the commute, right before a deadline — fits oddly well.

And when you suddenly wonder where you are on your own timeline, switch to 'An Ordinary Story'. You'll go through a sprint and a full stop back to back. One song, about four minutes, changing the speed of your day — that doesn't come around often.

Just give it a listen, trust me.