There is a book by Gillette on this called The Sounds of the City in which he considers rock to be a translation of the musical terms into new environmental noise. What has been missed by all students of jazz and rock is that music is necessarily an extension of human speech and gesture. Rock is the new technological environment noise mediated through the English language. There are obviously some deep and significant reasons why it is only southern speech that serves this purpose in America. Rhythm of northern and more literate talk will not serve the music establishment. The Beatles were Irish[ sic] boys and used “Elizabethan English.” The south is also an oral culture with its roots in Elizabethan English. There is the further factor that only English has the prosity, that is, feet. All other languages have only syllables. The power of English in jazz and rock to accommodate itself to Negro dance and music may have significance here. So far as I know, it is impossible to sing rock in any other language but English. It has been tried.