Stink Lines (Soundtrack)

Team Fortress 2 Official Soundtrack

"Team Fortress 2 (Main Theme)" "Playing With Danger" "Rocket Jump Waltz" "The Art of War" "Faster Than a Speeding Bullet" "Right Behind You" "Petite Chou-Fleur" "Intruder Alert" "Drunken Pipe Bomb" "More Gun" "Haunted Fortress 2" "TF2 Saxxy 2011 Theme" "A Little Heart to Heart" "MEDIC!" "Archimedes" "Dreams of Cruelty" "The Calm" "ROBOTS!" "Dapper Cadaver" "Rise of the Living Bread" "Red Bread" "Three Days to Live" "Seduce Me!" "Stink Lines" "It Hates Me So Much" "Misfortune Teller" "Soldier of Dance" "RED Triumphs!" "BLU Triumphs!" "Yeti Park" "Saxton's Dilemma" "Mercenary Park" "Saluting the Fallen"

"Stink Lines" is one of the song titles featured on the Team Fortress 2 Official Soundtrack, listed as track number 24. Added after the Love & War Update, it is a full version of the music heard in Expiration Date while Spy is giving a speech to the other Mercenaries. It is one of 33 main menu startup themes.

Analysis

Key: A Major (and F# Minor, though the key is largely unclear)
Time Signature: 2/4-3/4-4/4-6/4
Tempo: 132, 166 BPM
Length: 1:34
Release Date: August 7, 2014
Update: Love & War
Composer: Mike Morasky
Instrumentation: flute, piccolo, clarinet, 2 trumpets, 2 horns, 3 trombones (2 tenors, 1 bass), tuba, piano, drumset, 2 violins, viola, violoncello, contrabass

Underscoring parts of Expiration Date, "Stink Lines" is written similarly to a film score. Several parts of the track seem to be variations on Playing With Danger's main motif, an apparent inspiration for much of its compositional elements.

Beginning with a repeated snare pattern punctuated by contrabasses, the track's first musical statement is a chorale in the key of A; the chorale underscores the Spy's speech in Expiration Date as a "call-to-arms." The only chords used in this section are A major, D major, and E major (I-IV-V), which are all found in the diatonic harmony of a major scale. The statement ends on E major, but resolves to F# minor, the relative minor of A major (though this section almost entirely consists of chromaticism, and cannot be clearly defined). This new section contains a chromatic motif played by piano and flute, similar in scoring to that of Playing With Danger, which is then played by low brass and piano. The ending lands on F#, simply stopping at the end of a phrase as opposed to a climactic finish.

Update history

August 7, 2014 Patch

• Added a new startup music track from Expiration Date.

Trivia

• The name of the music track is a reference to the Scout explaining a drawing he made on a card in the Expiration Date film.
• A part of this song is used before the round starts in Competitive Mode (0:00 - 0:20)