Songfacts®:

• "Time Is a Bomb" is Metric's ode to living fully in the face of mortality, framing time as a ticking device you can't defuse but can choose to dance next to anyway. Emily Haines sings from the perspective of someone who refuses to let fear of consequences turn the rest of her life into risk-averse boredom.
  
  "Say what you want about the wellness boom, I think it's a natural response to the unrelenting awareness we have of our mortality," said Haines. "The powerless feeling of wanting to hold on and make time stop while simultaneously doing everything you can to max out your fleeting vitality – this song expresses that inner tension."
  
  "I love my life and I'm truly amazed that I made it to my happily ever after, but I don't want to spend the time I have left obsessing over personal consequences, being boring and hiding from fun," she continued. "I don't expect to be jumping off speaker stacks or crowd surfing like I used to, but it's still too soon to say never."
• Emily Haines wrote "Time Is a Bomb" with Metric guitarist James Shaw and producer Gavin Brown. The song is driven by serrated guitars, insistent synths and a steady pulse that mirrors the ticking-bomb image, with Haines' vocal shifting between cool control and urgent lift on the chorus hook.
• Brown and Shaw produced the track with frequent Kings of Leon collaborator Liam O'Neil, and with John O'Mahony, who has also worked with The Kills and Sara Bareilles.
• "Time Is a Bomb" is the third track on Metric's 10th album, Romanticize The Dive, and was released as the album's second single. Romanticize The Dive was recorded at Electric Lady in New York and positioned as a return to the city and era where the band first came together.
• Press for Romanticize The Dive talks about "the romance of a less than perfect life," with songs that embrace chaos and vulnerability rather than trying to curate a flawless existence. In that context, "Time Is a Bomb" pairs especially neatly with its lead single, "Victim Of Luck." "Victim" reframes fortune and struggle, while "Time" turns the limited time horizon into fuel for connection and adrenaline rather than an excuse to play it safe.