Song Review:: U-Know (TVXQ!): Time's Tickin'- Time's Tickin'

• Release date: 2026 July 20

• Album tracklist: Time's Tickin', An Ordinary Story

• Album runtime: 7 minutes

 I've actually already seen the music video because I let YouTube just play music videos for about an hour and this was one of them. Also, I was mildly surprised to see him so active on Weverse this last weekend, but when I saw he'd dropped a new song, it suddenly all made sense. Those two usually aren't very active unless they've got something going on. During SM Town last year, Changmin was commenting on posts for about five minutes right before TVXQ! was performing. Literally stopped as the group ahead of them finished.

This song is oddly clangy, and it sounds like there's a cowbell involved, which I'm always surprised by, though to be fair, I think it's been several months at minimum since the last time I heard a cowbell, or something that sounds like one in a song I was reviewing. Everything else going on in the song is oddly dramatic in a way I enjoy hearing but rarely expect. And the only spot where the song stills long enough to let it appear vulnerable, we get a ticking clock. I like that because refer back to the song title, please.

We get some rap, we get some singing, and we get some high notes like he's trying to take Changmin's position, which is both ambitious and impressive how well he handles it He doesn't have what I'd call a silky voice in this song; it's got a lot more of a conversational texture, and that's not even counting the rapping. I also have to mention how much I adore the ending with the ad-libs and how aggressively textured it is. I genuinely love it. 

This feels like it's connected to lore of some sort. I've had the early SM lore explained in broad strokes to me, so I've got a baseline for it, but a lot of the details I haven't gotten. That being said, this feels lore. Yes, we have a storyline, and I love that because I'm pretty sure he's still an eldritch abomination that decided to do some time travelling. Why? Not entirely sure. I'm coming into his lore late and I haven't looked at his other music videos yet other than what I've reviewed. But this one is fun. We've got some racing, we've got some fighting, we've some video game playing. It's all a good time.