I think the live version is even better!

It’s a song about subconscious mechanical behavior. It’s about going through Shadow work. It’s about negative patterns of behavior that we do not control.

It's about going to therapy and reliving everything that hurt you. Actually it's a song about everyone.

The story is supposedly that "Digging In the Dirt" is about Gabriel going through therapy after a hard break-up . Note some of the lyrics: "digging in the dirt to find the places I got Hurt. The video tells the story. When he was down in the dirt, notice how dark and scary it was. He had to dig deep in therapy to figure out what went wrong in the relationship and the things from his past that contributed. Notice the anger when he was swatting at the bug but it looked like he was hitting at her. Also notice the end of the video seems more hopeful after coming from being in the dirt.

The song is about healing yourself which requires a lot of work through therapy & other forms. Many of us are angry, frustrated & we take it out on those we love most but if we dig in the dirt through therapy & self discovery we will find the places we got hurt, rediscover ourselves, love & appreciate ourselves more life will be much better for ourselves & our loved ones. We are buried in a lot of emotional baggage which stem from childhood which we need to dig ourselves out from. It truly is a rebirth & a healing process like the end of the video where spring has sprung & he’s popping those fresh strawberries in his mouth. I’m so sad I missed his last concert in Montreal at the old Club Soda:(

To me, Peter really hit his stride in the mid-80's/early 90's. He had gone solo from Genesis and made 4 eponymous albums that were good (great even), but pretty weird. On 'So' (the album before 'Us' which has Digging in the Dirt on it), he finally broke through and had multiple successful singles off an album (Sledgehammer, Big Time, Don't Give Up, etc.) and then followed it with this very introspective album, 'Us', that I usually listened to straight through. Steam was probably the most successful song off of this album. Great song picks, Peter Gabriel has a deep library and he's outstanding. I saw him in concert 3 or 4 times and even met him once...

Greetings. That was in 1992. I already liked his music before that, but didn't know his name. With "Digging in the Dirt" I connected the music with the name behind it for the first time and immediately bought all the records. Solo and Genesis. If I remember correctly, he had split up with Roseanna Arquette at the time and in Digging in the Dirt he had processed the separation.

My take on this is about how abuse in your childhood can affect your adult life.

Watch Big Time and Shock the Monkey original videos; Peter Gabriel's videos are always very creative

One of his better late 80s efforts