It was the greatest song in the world. When played, it suppressed conscious thought and induced beat-specific seizures in the listeners, such that each twitched and thrashed in time to the music. The endorphin rush and loosening of the subconscious that resulted proved enormously therapeutic.

Subsequent clinical tests demonstrated that listening to the song — which was an aerobic ten minutes long — forced the production of a neurological chemical (dubbed by the non-scientific press beatamine) that prevented all seizures, induced and spontaneously occurring, for two to four hours following exposure.

The song was banned, however, after fifteen years of glorious rhythmic life, when the copyright lapsed and it was introduced into the repetoire of industrial music companies (commonly referred to by the trade name Muzak). Thirty window cleaners fell to their deaths outside of offices playing the song before the correlation was noted. The song was declared a menace and all performance of it outlawed.

Yet it survives, played in rogue nightclubs and underground discos, and if you stand quiet — right as night falls — you can just hear the thrum of the bass rising through the pavement, spreading health and madness through the city.