Tick Tock Tune - Television Tropes & Idioms

What you waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting, what you waiting for

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, take your chance you stupid hoe.

— Gwen Stefani, "What You Waiting For?"

This is when the music has ticking clock sound effects to it, or similar, such as instruments, metronome sounds, clicks, or even onomatopeia. This is sometimes used to make you remember that, yes, time is running and to hasten the pace.

Examples:

open/close all folders

Film

Hans Zimmer's score for Inception prominently features the ticking of a clock on several of its tracks. Not surprisingly, the perception of time is an important subtheme of the film.
Zimmer is apparently fond of the style. A Game of Shadows prominently features ticking in several scores, notably when someone is about to die, or when they're trying to stop his plans, with all the subtext that implies.
"Never Smile at a Crocodile" from Peter Pan. Appropriate, since the Crocodile swallowed a clock.

Live Action Television

John Williams' theme tune from The Time Tunnel
One of the theme tunes from Beat the Clock, natch.
Heroes has Sylar's Leitmotif, which is not so much a "time is running out" as a creepy "this guy knows how things tick" thing.
The theme tune from Callan is suspenseful and includes the suggestion of a slowly ticking clock, reinforced by the image in the opening credits of a swinging lightbulb as a substitute pendulum.
The music bed that plays during the Bonus Round on Wheel of Fortune.
The Jeopardy! Think Music.
60 Minutes takes this to the extreme, using only the tick tick tick of a stopwatch where other shows would use a theme song.
The Countdown Clock music.

Music

Time's Up by Living Colour starts with ticking clocks and bells.
Its only in the chorus, but Tick Tick Boom!
A nice old example from 1876: Henry Clay Work's "My Grandfather's Clock."
Even older, from 1794: Franz Josef Haydn's Symphony No. 101 in D major (the "Clock" Symphony), the second movement.
Gustav Holst's "Saturn the Bringer of Old Age" from The Planets, though it's hard to decide whether the alternating chords are meant to stand for the tick-tock or the chime.
"Oily Night" and "The Earth Died Screaming" by Tom Waits.
The techno song Insomnia starts with a jangling, ticking clock. Intentionally annoying, to put you in the same perspective as the title implies.
Styx's "Too Much Time On My Hands" and it's ticking away, ticking away with me, etc.
Gwen Stefani's "What You Waitin' For?"
- The cover by Franz Ferdinand.
Ligeti's "Poeme Symphonique for 100 Metronomes" uses, well, metronomes. It doesn't inspire any ratcheting tension, but expand your horizons by exposing yourself to it anyway.
The classic Leroy Anderson composition "The Syncopated Clock".
"Frantic" by Metallica.
Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock".
The Chambers Brothers' psychedelicized soul epic "Time Has Come Today" - in the tick-tock intro, someone even goes "Cuckoo!" in the background.
The intro and ending of Assemblage 23's Decades.
"TiK ToK" by Ke$ha
"Tick-Tock Sick", Jim Henson's minor novelty hit from 1960.
Placebo's Without you I'm nothing. Here's the version with David Bowie.
Tiny Tim would make tick tock sounds with his tongue while singing Tiptoe Through The Tulips.
Depeche Mode's song "Here Is the House" features a ticking clock throughout.
Sting's "Russians," a song about nuclear war, uses the ticking sound of a time bomb at the beginning and end.
the gazettE's "Suicide Circus". Though the singer has a heavy accent and it sounds more like "chitatatatatata", that's what it is. Even if the "Nobody can rewind time" afterwards wasn't a good enough indication.
Dreaming by BT f/ Kirsty Hawkshaw.
"Time Marches On" by Tracy Lawrence.

Professional Wrestling

WWE: MVP's Theme song.
1, 2, You hear the clock ticking?
Tick tock, you're about to stop living
Tick tock, I want you to remember me
Tick tock, but the day don't have no memory
I'M COMING

Video Games

"Hurry! from Final Fantasy VII.
"Reach for the Moon, Immortal Smoke" (Mokou's theme) from Touhou.
A good portion of Chrono Trigger's soundtrack features the ticking of a clock, fitting for the game's theme.
Final Fantasy X's Thunder Plains music uses metronomes.
"Temporal Spire" from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2.
The music played in the background for the Flipsville and Chompworks Galaxies from Super Mario Galaxy 2.
- Despite Tick Tock Clock (from Super Mario 64) taking place INSIDE a clock, it doesn't have it's own tune. In Mario Kart DS however, it comes complete with it's own tick-tock tune.
- This tune from Super Mario 3D Land.
The Fairy Queen's theme in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.
In Magical Starsign there is a dungeon based around the concept of time constantly being replayed (you view holographic versions of events from ealier in the game) and there is a creepy tune complete with "tick tock" style.
In Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory's bomb-disarming mission at the bathhouse, the beeping of the timers is integrated into the music, which gets more frantic as the clock runs down.

Web Original

"The Felt", an album centered around the Time Master gang from Homestuck, has "Swing of the Clock", "The Broken Clock" and "Time Paradox".

Western Animation

Phineas and Ferb has "Watchin' and Waitin'" which is a song about watching to see how the boys' inventions disappear before Mom gets home.
- There's also one with a clock theme for Candace waiting by the phone for Jeremy to call.

Other

The BBC's news theme.
There was a 1960s novelty instrumental called "Time Beat" by Ray Cathode, based on an interval theme by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop with added instrumentation by George Martin.
The music outside the Small World ride at Disneyland.

Added Alliterative Appeal

Tickle Torture