And euery nyght he perchit hym In myn ladyis chaumbyr

February 3, 2004 5:28 PM

"I Have a Gentil C**k." A rooster that is, but Apple may not have realized that when they altered the title on iTunes (iTunes link.) The song (sample: Real Audio, Windows Media), arranged by Carol Wood, is a 14th-15th century medieval love song, a variation of the aube. It may have inspired Chaucer's description of Chantecleer in the Canterbury Tales. [Via Digital Medievalist, SFW unless you work for Apple.]
posted by homunculus (10 comments total)

As soon as you mentioned Chaucer, all credibility started to slip away. He was a cad. or a dirty old man... i don't know...
posted by Frasermoo at 5:32 PM on February 3, 2004

Gah! Fixed link for Chantecleer.
posted by homunculus at 5:34 PM on February 3, 2004

Apple alters the title of songs based on pattern matching, it's not a person. I fooled around one day searching for non-naughty yet bowlderized song titles.
posted by substrate at 5:53 PM on February 3, 2004

Ah, thanks substrate.

Speaking of Chaucer, here's his Treatise on the Astrolabe, possibly the oldest technical manual in the English language.
posted by homunculus at 7:14 PM on February 3, 2004

It looks dumb, yeah, but you'd know Apple would get in trouble with the crowd that just finished having a conniption over a boob context or no context if they left it in. (the cock, that is)
posted by Space Coyote at 8:59 PM on February 3, 2004

..but the song in the last two sentences it becomes clear is not really a "rooster" and really is a "c**k". Plus it is Chaucer. So there can be no doubt this is a rude song that 400 years later we are still censoring. Not unlike Jacksons teet. We can be sure 400 years hence we will still be censoring teets and c**ks.
posted by stbalbach at 9:10 PM on February 3, 2004

It's innuendo. I don't really blame Apple for playing it safe with their pattern matching, but the whole thing is pretty funny.

We can be sure 400 years hence we will still be censoring teets and c**ks.

I'm not so sure. After all, Chaucer's country now has the Sun and its page 3 girls, so who knows?
posted by homunculus at 10:19 PM on February 3, 2004

That is weird - since installing iTunes, I cannot visit the iTunes music store without un-hiding it from within iTunes. I guess they really don't want us non-'merkins to visit, huh?
posted by dg at 10:30 PM on February 3, 2004

Apple should get with the times, the fucking cunts.
posted by Blue Stone at 7:57 AM on February 4, 2004

Does iTunes have the OMD song Enola Homosexual?
posted by straight at 7:33 PM on February 4, 2004