Digging in the Dirt

"Digging in the Dirt"
Single by Peter Gabriel
from the album Us
B-side	"Quiet Steam"
Released	7 September 1992 (1992-09-07)[1]
Genre	Art rock[2]
Length	5:16
Label	Geffen
Songwriter(s)	Peter Gabriel
Producer(s)	Daniel Lanois Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel singles chronology
"Solsbury Hill" (1990) "Digging in the Dirt" (1992) "Steam" (1993)

"Digging in the Dirt" is a song by British musician Peter Gabriel. It was released as the first single taken from his sixth studio album, Us, on 7 September 1992. The song was a minor hit on the US Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 52, but it topped both the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks and Album Rock Tracks charts. The song was moderately successful on the UK Singles Chart, where it peaked at number 24, and it reached the top 10 in Canada, Portugal, and Sweden.

"Digging in the Dirt" began with some percussion tracks played by Hossam Ramzy that originated from "Zaar", a song on Gabriel's Passion album. Ramzy's surdo and duf tracks were then combined with a rhythm pattern from an Akai MPC60 and a synth bass played on a Roland D-50. Gabriel then ad-libbed some vocal parts, first coming up with the "shut your mouth" lyric, which was one of the song's working titles.^[3] At other points of its development, the song was also temporarily known as "Plod".^[4]

Gabriel stated that the lyrics to "Digging in the Dirt" were about examining his "darker side" and passive-aggressive behaviors.^[5] He took inspiration from Why We Kill: Understanding Violence Across Cultures and Disciplines, a book that analyzed characteristics shared amongst murderers.^[6] Some of the lyrics also reference the psychotherapy that Gabriel was receiving at the time.^[4]

The original tracking of the song was conducted in the Work Room of Real World Studios with David Rhodes and Daniel Lanois playing Steinberger and Fender Telecaster guitars respectively. The signals of these instruments were compressed with valves from an old Decca desk and sent to speakers situated in a separate overdub room that were miked with a Shure SM57 and an AKG D12. Tony Levin played a Music Man bass guitar connected to a Trace Elliot amplifier; his signal was sent downstairs to a speaker in Studio 1.^[3]

Rather than a standard drum kit, Gabriel assembled a special percussion kit for Manu Katché to play, including a drum from Burundi that sonically resembled a snare drum. David Bottrill, who served as the producer for these sessions, recalled that snares were placed on the Burundi drum, which was miked with Shure SM57 microphones on both the top and bottom drumhead. A muted small jazz kick drum from Gabriel's time with Genesis was also used and miked with an Electro-Voice RE20 close to the outer drum skin. Bottrill stated that the intention of this miking method was to ensure that the thud of the instrument was captured rather than the kick drum pedal. Following the assembling of the rough demo, Gabriel traveled down to Daniel Lanois' Kingsway Studio in New Orleans for one week, where overdubs of an Epiphone guitar played by Leo Nocentelli and a horn section were recorded, although the horns did not make the song's final mix.^[3]

Richard Macphail, who was a childhood friend of Gabriel, contributed backing vocals on the song. Gabriel had granted Macphail and his wife the opportunity to record three songs at Real World Studios and later invited Macphail to sing on "Digging in the Dirt".^[7] The backing vocalists, which also included Ayub Ogada and Peter Hammill in addition to Gabriel and Macphail, recorded their parts using a Neumann U 47; the four of them dubbed themselves "the Everlys" due to the vocal harmonies they achieved through multitracking.^[3]

Most of the instruments from the original recording session were scrapped and re-recorded, this time in the downstairs control room at Real World Studios. Levin redid his parts on a Status bass and Katché eschewed his percussion kit in favor of a Yamaha drum set with small splash cymbals, which replaced the hi-hat in his configuration. Bottrill and his assistant Richard Blair looped certain sections of Katché's drumming and realigned his playing for the purpose of precision by isolating the kick drum from other components of his drum kit. These parts were augmented with rhythms from an Akai S1000, sequenced Burundi drum hits, and break beats.^[3]

"Digging in the Dirt" was released as the lead single from Us. Several b-sides were issued with the single, including "Quiet Steam", a stripped back and mellower version of the album's next single, "Steam". The single also included an abridged recording of "Digging in the Dirt" with most of its vocals stripped with the exception of the "this time you've gone too far" lyric. The CD Maxi version included another instrumental composition titled "Bashi-Bazouk", which was also included as a Japanese bonus track on Us.^[8]

"Digging in the Dirt" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 85 on the week dated 3 October 1992.^[9] The release of "Digging in the Dirt" coincided with the launch of the music video, which received heavy rotation on both MTV and VH1. One week later, the song reached number one on the Billboard Alternative Airplay chart. In its 17 October 1992 edition of the Hot 100, Billboard noted that the song had failed to make a major impact on the chart, where it stalled at number 78 for the second consecutive week.^[10] The song eventually peaked at number 52 on the Billboard Hot 100 during its eighth week on the chart and dropped out of the Hot 100 altogether after eleven weeks.^[9] "Digging in the Dirt" performed better in the UK, where it peaked at number 24, but still underperformed in comparison to "Sledgehammer", the lead single from So six years prior.^[7]

Upon release, "Digging in the Dirt" received mostly positive reviews from music critics, with Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune labeling the song as "excellent".^[11] He further wrote in his review for Rolling Stone that the song was "instantly engaging and subversive."^[12] Jim Sullivan of The Boston Globe thought that "Digging in the Dirt" was one of the only few radio-friendly songs on Us.^[13] The Oxnard Press-Courier noted the autobiographical nature of "Digging in the Dirt" and called it an "ominous" track.^[14] In a mixed review for Us David Browne of Entertainment Weekly was favorable toward the chorus of "Digging in the Dirt", although he predicted that the special effects found in the music video would have more of a lasting legacy than the song itself.^[15]

Retrospective reviews of "Digging in the Dirt have also been positive. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic highlighted "Digging in the Dirt" as an accessible track with an "insistent pulse".^[16] Paste ranked the song number 15 on its list of the 20 greatest Peter Gabriel songs, noting the contrast between the "low and groovy verses", the angry chorus, and the post-chorus that "coos with fragility."^[17]

The Secret World Live version of the song features a chaotic blend of high-pitched distorted guitar (by guitarist David Rhodes) as well as occasional jarring synth bass stabs and an expansive performance on the drums. Gabriel wore a special helmet with a video camera attached, showing in great detail his facial expressions, while moving in time with the music. This is used to create what Q magazine described as an "unappetising" image of Gabriel, most prominent during the "freak-out" sequence in which the camera is pointed down Gabriel's throat, nostrils, and earlobes.^[18] The song was later performed on Gabriel's 2002 Growing Up Tour and appeared on its accompanying live concert film.^[19][20]

Gabriel revisited the song for his New Blood album, which featured orchestral rearrangements of Gabriel's music catalog.^[21] Due to difficulties in tackling the song's rhythmic elements without bass and drums, the song was nearly dropped from the album, but Gabriel avoided this by working extensively with the woodwind players to achieve a satisfactory groove.^[21] Gabriel also performed the song on his 2014 Back to Front Tour and his I/O Tour in 2023, with a live version from the former tour also appearing on his Back to Front: Live in London album.^[22][23]

The music video for the single was directed by John Downer and utilised stop motion animation, a technique used in the videos for Gabriel's earlier hits "Sledgehammer" and "Big Time". The work was painstaking, especially for Gabriel himself who was required to lie still for hours at a time over the course of several days.^[4]

According to Gabriel, "the meadow of flowers from the final scenes of the "Digging in the Dirt" video were filmed at the edge of the carpark at Real World Studios."^[24] The video is largely an exploration of the issues in his personal life at the time, the end of his relationship with Rosanna Arquette, his desire to reconnect with his daughter and the self-healing he was looking for in therapy.^[4]

Gabriel returned to stop motion and claymation that were previously used on some of Gabriel's So era singles in the mid 1980s, forgoing the computer graphics used in "Steam". In the video, Gabriel is displayed in a variety of disturbing imagery, including being buried alive, consumed by an overgrowth of foliage (thanks to the stop-motion process) and flying into a rage while trying to swat a wasp.^[4] Gabriel stated that he wanted the video to encapsulate the feeling of anger, but was uncomfortable depicting violence toward women, so the rage was instead directed at the wasp.^[5] Francesca Gonshaw depicted the woman in the video.^[4]

Initially, the word "DIG" forms in the grass while dark imagery plays. Gabriel morphs into a skeleton while trying to excavate himself. Ultimately, the mushrooms sprout to form the word "HELP," followed by "HEAL" in blooming flowers after Gabriel has emerged from underground, now clad in white. In 1993, the video won the Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.^[4]

Year	Nominee / work	Award	Result
1992	Grammy Award[25]	Best Male Rock Vocal Performance	Nominated
		Best Rock Song	Nominated
		Best Music Video	Won
1993	MTV Video Music Awards	Video of the Year	Nominated
		Viewer's Choice Award	Nominated
		International Viewer's Choice Award for MTV Europe	Nominated

All songs were written by Peter Gabriel.

CD maxi

1. "Digging in the Dirt" – 5:16
2. "Digging in the Dirt" (instrumental) – 5:10
3. "Quiet Steam" – 6:25
4. "Bashi-Bazouk" – 4:47

7-inch single

1. "Digging in the Dirt" – 5:16
2. "Quiet Steam" – 6:23

• Peter Gabriel – lead vocals, programming, synth bass, keyboards
• Tony Levin – bass guitar
• David Rhodes – electric guitar
• Manu Katché – drums
• David Bottrill – additional programming

Additional musicians

• Richard Blair – additional programming
• Leo Nocentelli – additional guitar
• Hossam Ramzy – surdo
• Babacar Faye – djembe
• Assane Thiam – tama
• Ayub Ogada – backing vocals
• Peter Hammill – backing vocals
• Richard Macphail – backing vocals

• List of number-one mainstream rock hits (United States)
• Number one modern rock hits of 1992