Mason Ramsey Sings About Cow Farts in New ‘Eco Campaign’
Two years after going viral for yodeling Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues” in an Illinois Walmart, Mason Ramsey is now applying his uncanny vocal abilities to a stinky problem threatening to overheat the Earth: cow-based greenhouse-gas emissions.
“When cows fart and burp and splatter/well it ain’t no laughing matter,” Ramsey sings, emerging from the rear-end of a cow, in an inexplicably clean and sparkling white suit. Things get even weirder — and apocalyptic — when the 13-year-old dons a rhinestone-studded gas mask to envision a world uninhabitable by human beings. “Reducing meth-aa-aa-aane, meth-aa-aa-aane,” Ramsey twangs in the “chorus.”
The song is actually an advertisement from Burger King, a company that’s faced criticism from advocacy organizations for its abysmal record on environmental issues. Burger King enlisted Ramsey for its latest campaign, which promotes the fast-food chain’s new Whopper menu item made from lemongrass-fed cows, which, Burger King claims, results in a 33 percent reduction in methane emissions. (The company has faced pressure from investors in recent years to cut back on its greenhouse emissions.)
“So to change their emissions, Burger King went on a mission,” Ramsey sings, promoting the company’s greenwashing cow country jingle — arguably the weirdest country product placement since Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson both hawked Taco Bell in the early Nineties. Or perhaps since Darius Rucker did his own infamous BK ad in 2005 for the Tendercrisp Bacon Cheddar Ranch, a surreal clip that dropped a pre-country-star Rucker into a fantastical fast-food world.
Ramsey released the EP Twang in 2019, and also joined Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus in a remix of their hit “Old Town Road,” which Ramsey performed at the Grammys this past January with Cyrus, Lil Nas X, BTS, and Diplo.
