You will probably not be surprised to learn that Peter Gabriel was dealing with some stuff when he wrote the lyrics for Digging In The Dirt. He was in the midst of a breakup with Rosanna Arquette, he was deep into therapy, and he was studying the lives of men who were on Death Row awaiting execution. Gabriel was also reading a book, called Why We Kill, that suggested that all murderers share certain things in common, one of those being an uncontrollable anger that, much like the wasps in song’s video, can not be swatted away. All of this contributed to a song that was one of Gabriel’s darkest, with the “dirt” standing in as a metaphor for his own personal issues.
The video features Peter Gabriel in a number of disturbing situations. When he’s not being buried alive, he’s either arguing with a woman in a car or he’s being attacked by wasps. The woman in the video was played by Francesca Gonshaw, who is probably best known for playing waitress Maria Recamier on the popular BBC sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo!
The video features a return to the claymation and the stop motion animation that was used in the video for Gabriel’s Sledgehammer. What was used to lighthearted effect in Gabriel’s previous videos is used to tell a much darker story in Digging in the Dirt.
What was the point of having him bookend this video? Was the band really big fans of Harry Dean Stanton? Was Stanton a fan?
In between the parts with Stanton, we just get a stylized road trip. There’s nothing particularly interesting about it other than the spin shots. I kind of liked those.
This is one of those videos where I can find quite a few credits.
Charles Mehling directed the video. He has a little over 25 credits as a director of music videos.
Cathy Pellow was the producer. She has a variety of credits spread over work as a video commissioner, executive producer, producer, and director.
Simon Coull was the one who shot it. He appears to have done a little over 10 music videos.
Jeff Seibenick has worked as a director, editor, and cinematographer. He has a bunch of different credits over on IMDb.
Finally, prolific 1st assistant director John Downer worked on this video along with the some 80-90 videos he has done.
i like blood recently told me to put on Amber by 311 because it would make me vomit. How could I not take that challenge?
I didn’t vomit. It is a song I can honestly say that I forgot existed. I’m not sure what memories this conjures up. I wanna say, sitting in a car in a parking lot outside of Togo’s. That’s all I’ve got.
The video, I’m almost 100% certain, I didn’t see it until I sat down to write this post.
What can I say about it?
You can say it’s not very good and you’ll forget it the instant it’s over.
We’re doing a question and answer post again?
Yes.
Fine.
Q: Why doesn’t the camera just go through the beads at the start? A: Because the video is obsessed with fade transitions. It probably saved them money as well.
Q: Why is he lifting his hand in the air? He does it several times during the video. A: It’s because melismas were popular at the time. There were a lot of artists who moved their hands around like that.
Q: Why is his face out of focus? A: They probably screwed up.
Q: Did you notice the 311 St. sign? A: In between the annoying jump cuts? Yes, I did.
Q: I guess that’s a street known for streaking, right? A: Congratulations. You looked up that 311 is the police code for indecent exposure. Anything else?
Q: Umm…he has a hole in his T-Shirt. A: He sure does. Also, we should be listening to Bad Brains instead of this.
Q: Aren’t you going to show some screenshots of stuff that happens outside that room? A: Nothing happens out there.
Q: Very true, but there is one person people might recognize. A: Fine. If you look at the scenes where lead-singer Nick Hexum is in the water, then you’ll notice that the woman he is with is Nicole Scherzinger. She was his fiancee at the time, a member of Eden’s Crush, and would go on to do things such as The Pussycat Dolls. The song is about her.
Q: I think that’s it. That is unless you want to make a joke about the campfire bit by trying to tie it to Cabin Fever (2002) and Doctor Dog. A: I’ll pass. The rest of the video, campfire included, is just a group of people doing things at the beach. It’s as calming as watching other people have fun at the beach. That is to say, it’s really boring.
Q: Wait a second. I forgot to ask who made this thing? A: The Malloys directed it. They are actually Emmett Malloy and Brendan Malloy who have somewhere between 40-50 music video credits to their names. The video’s first assistant director was John Downer. He has worked as such on around 83 music videos. They’ve all done other work.
Q: Gonna end this with your stupid catchphrase? A: No. I’ll just end it with their drummer apparently having discovering the language from Arrival (2016) seeing as I only enjoyed that film a little more than this video.
Through the Shattered Lens 