Posted by Andrew Unterberger on 10/13/2011 at 12:01 PM Videos

The Popdust Files: Charity, chipotle, Commercials, covers, karen o, waylon jennings, Willie Nelson

Boy, Chipotle with the gravity. After Willie Nelson covered Coldplay’s “The Scientist” for a tearjerker of an animated ad a couple months ago, now we have Karen O. taking on Willie and Waylon Jennings’ “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys” (originally by Ed Bruce—sorry Ed) for a live-action one. In this one—which is vaguely reminsicent of Where the Wild Things Are, possibly just because of the involvement of both children and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ frontwoman—a couple kids break into an abandoned house and play around in it, discovering that the house (and accompanying farm) was abandoned due to financial crisis. The spot ends with the message “Each week in America, 330 farmers leave their land” and an ad for Chipotle’s efforts to raise a million dollars for Farm Aid this Halloween.

Like the “Scientist” one from a few months back, it’s an incredibly sad clip for a company that sells fast-food burritos–not just because the clip is so dark and kinda spooky (it’s titled “Abandoned,” ferchrissakes) but because Karen O.’s cover of the Willie and Waylon joint is such a slow, skeletal and stark rendition. It’ll be curious to see if Chipotle continues their whisper-down-the-lane cover chain by having someone cover Karen for their next ad. How about John Mayer doing a super-stripped-down version of “Cheated Hearts“? That’d be appropriately bumming, certainly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhG8gnEAKks&feature=player_embedded

[SPIN]