The ultimate earworm

[TomMazanec]

Someone writes an advertising jingle that gets people tapping their feet, drumming their fingers...all the way up to permanent grand mal seizures. And you can't get it out of your head.
Epidemic of plane crashes, auto accidents, etc...dozens, hundreds, thousands...finally doctors have to perform brain operations on whole world population to remove the ability to neurologically process music.
Short story or possibly brief novelette, written last couple decades?

 

[hitmouse]

Not as apocalyptic as your scenario, this is a central device in The Demolished Man, by Alfred Bester, where the earworm is used by a criminal to stop his mind being read.

 

[PaulMmn]

Reminds me of a Monty Python skit-- man writes the Funniest Joke. And dies laughing. And anyone who reads or hears the joke dies laughing as well. The British form a research group to translate the joke into German. Translaters only see one word at a time. One of the research group saw 2 words, and spent weeks in the hospital, laughing and grinning. The Brits issue the German translation to the troops, who use the joke to win victory.

 

[Danny McG]

Reminds me of a Monty Python skit-- man writes the Funniest Joke. And dies laughing. And anyone who reads or hears the joke dies laughing as well. The British form a research group to translate the joke into German. Translaters only see one word at a time. One of the research group saw 2 words, and spent weeks in the hospital, laughing and grinning. The Brits issue the German translation to the troops, who use the joke to win victory.

The Killing Joke

 

[Pete_100]

I can think of three possibilities.

The most likely is “Rump-titty-titty-tum-tah-tee” by Fritz Leiber. Hugo- nominated short story, 1958. Read it here

The second is The Ultimate Melody by Arthur C Clarke. A somewhat similar premise, but only the song's creator is affected. It is destroyed before it can hurt anyone else.

An unlikely but possible one is A Literary Nightmare by Mark Twain.

 

[Matteo]

The Killing Joke

Fortunately joke warfare was banned under the Geneva Convention.

And I think... that a search for this book has been posted before.

 

[TomMazanec]

Three good suggestions, Pete_100, but not what I was thinking of.