<P> The alliterative phrase rocking and rolling was originally used by mariners at least as early as the 17th century, to describe the combined rocking (fore and aft) and rolling (side to side) motion of a ship on the ocean . Examples include an 1821 reference, "...prevent her from rocking and rolling ...", and an 1835 reference to a ship "...rocking and rolling on both beam - ends". As the term referred to movement forwards, backwards and from side to side, it acquired sexual connotations from early on; the sea shanty "Johnny Bowker" (or "Boker"), probably from the early nineteenth century, contains the lines "Oh do, my Johnny Bowker / Come rock and roll me over". </P> <P> The hymn "Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep", with words written in the 1830s by Emma Willard and tune by Joseph Philip Knight, was recorded several times around the start of the twentieth century, by the Original Bison City Quartet before 1894, the Standard Quartette in 1895, John W. Myers at about the same time, and Gus Reed in 1908 . By that time, the specific phrase "rocking and rolling" was also used by African Americans in spirituals with a religious connotation . The earliest known recording of the phrase in use was on a 1904 Victor phonograph record, "The Camp Meeting Jubilee" by the Haydn Quartet, with the words "We've been rockin' an' rolling in your arms / Rockin' and rolling in your arms / Rockin' and rolling in your arms / In the arms of Moses ." Another version was issued on the Little Wonder record label in 1916 . "Rocking" was also used to describe the spiritual rapture felt by worshippers at certain religious events, and to refer to the rhythm often found in the accompanying music . </P> <P> At the same time, the terminology was used in secular contexts, for example to describe the motion of railroad trains . It has been suggested that it was also used by men building railroads, who would sing to keep the pace, swinging their hammers down to drill a hole into the rock, and the men who held the steel spikes would "rock" the spike back and forth to clear rock or "roll", twisting it to improve the "bite" of the drill . "Rocking" and "rolling" were also used, both separately and together, in a sexual context; writers for hundreds of years had used the phrases "They had a roll in the hay" or "I rolled her in the clover". </P> <P> By the early twentieth century the words were increasingly used together in secular black slang with a double meaning, ostensibly referring to dancing and partying, but often with the subtextual meaning of sex . </P>

What was the first rock and roll song