By John Walker on October 4th, 2007 at 8:15 pm.
Valve have just announced that The Orange Box is to have one more disc inside. A single, written by the excellent geek-turned-geek-singer, Jonathan Coulton, and members of the Valve writing staff, is to accompany the five games already bulging its cardboardy edges. (Presumably those ordering through Steam will be given a download).
Maddeningly (for both you and me), I know what the song is, and I will be murdered if I say. And I also know that I thought only yesterday, “Valve really ought to release that song as a single.” So clearly my thoughts control Valve’s actions. Know this: it’s incredibly good.
I’m just off to think about Valve giving me a well-paid job on their writing staff now.


Do you reckon we can make it number one?
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With single sales in both the UK and America, I think it should pretty much qualify on pre-orders alone.
Someone should point that out to Valve.
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Better than the Team Fortress 2 theme that I’m obsessively listening over and over and using to wake up in the morning since around a week?
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I’ve been listening to the HL2 soundtrack a lot lately. And even more than that, Absconditus by Zhaytee for MINERVA. And I’ve just noticed he’s released five more tunes for the latest release – I’ll have to download them when I’m next on my desktop. Anyway, check ‘em out here:
http://zhaymusic.com/music/mp3/zhaytee-absconditus.mp3
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Way better. I’m a fan of Coulton’s zombie memo Re: Your Brains, but this song tops it. Had it stuck in my head for a week after. John, did you notice the… other version of it? Early on?
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Shhhhhhhhhh Tom! Shhhhhhhhhhhh!
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I wasn’t going to buy the orange box UNTIL NOW
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It better not be a cover of REM’s Orange Crush, with the ‘Crush’ replaced with ‘Box’
“Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress 2. / I’ve got my Steam, I’ve got my Orange Box.
Portal too, Portal too. / I’ve got my Steam, I’ve got my Orange Box.”
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I want the TF2 theme :(
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Follow me, don’t follow me… I’ve got a Mac, I want the Orange Box….
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I think I’ve confused Jonathan Coulton with Weird Al Yankovic.
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Freelancepolice: you can find the TF2 theme in mp3 format in the following folder:
\Steam\steamapps\[yourSteamIdHere]\team fortress 2\tf\sound\ui
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It’s the song the engineer was strumming in his vid, isn’t it?
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Wow! Having heard the song, I am so excited that we’re getting this on a nice shiny CD.
I’m going to be listening to it all the way through launch day on my headphones and cackling because my officemates won’t have… ahem… experienced it.
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Do we still get it if we’ve bought the Orange Box on Steam?
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Yes.
However, does the song not count as a spoiler for Episode 2? Should I not listen to it until after playing? (I really hate spoilers.)
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You should definitely not listen to it before playing the Orange Box.
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Oh. Such an excellent song! I like to listen to it on repeat.
Beat the games first. Then listen to it.
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Bump because I live in a bin!
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