Baby, Can You Dig Your Man

Pocket Savior
Larry Underwood
This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me reasonably well, but I absolutely love Stephen King's The Stand.  I love the book, the audiobook recordings (both of them), the 1994 mini-series, the soundtrack from the mini-series, the haunting score by W. G. Snuffy Walden, and the directors commentary track from the DVD release of the mini-series.  The only thing associated with The Stand that I don't like is the 2020 mini-series, and the less said about that wasted opportunity, the better.

One of my favorite parts of the story is the song Baby Can You Dig Your Man.  The backstory is that after years of playing clubs and working as a session musician without a lot of success, a singer / songwriter named Larry Underwood has finally broken through with this song as a hit single.  He's run up a drug debt and had to flee California and go back to stay with his mother in New York for a little while, but aside from this temporary setback, Larry is on top of the world.  However, his good fortune just so happens to come right before a plague wipes out over 99% of the world's population.  Larry is one of the survivors who have a natural immunity to Captain Trips, so he is left to pick up the pieces of what is left in the world.  The fact that Baby Can You Dig Your Man was one of the last new pop songs to be given massive radio play before the world ended has resulted in it being kind of stuck in the minds of many of the other survivors.  This point is really driven home in the 1994 mini-series which has everybody from Glen Bateman, to The Trash Can Man, to Randall Flagg finding themselves absent-mindedly singing the tune.

This scene of Larry driving up to his mother's home in Queens is just past the 21 minute mark of the 1994 mini-series.  It serves as our introduction to both the character and his hit single which is playing on his car radio.  The clip we hear in the mini-series has a lead singer and backup singers with clear lyrics and instrumentals, so it sounds like it was a fully fleshed out song.  However, this clip is all that we ever hear from this recording, and I don't just mean in the mini-series itself.  The song wasn't included in the soundtrack, or in any of the bonus features on any DVD or Bluray releases that I am aware of.

For years, I've scoured the internet trying to find out if the people behind the making of this mini-series only commissioned the recording of the 43 seconds that you hear on screen, or if the full song was recorded, but I was never able to find anything except for audio clips taken from the mini-series and independent singers and musicians who tried to recreate the song on their own.  The only information about the song that I was able to find was a blurb on IMDB stating that the vocals in the song that you hear in the mini-series were performed by Al Kooper.

On Saturday February 8th, I was in attendance for the Exhumed Films presentation of the 1994 mini-series of The Stand at the Colonial Theater in Phoenixville.  Director Mick Garris was also in attendance to introduce the film, meet fans, sign autographs, and to have a Q&A with the fans in attendance after the credits rolled.  There's probably no better person to ask than the man who directed the mini-series, so I took a shot and asked.  He confirmed that the full song was recorded with the lyrics written by Stephen King and the music written by Mike Bloomfield.  He also said that it didn't appear on the soundtrack and was never officially released, but he suggested that I check YouTube.

I was glad that he gave me more information about the song that I didn't know, but to be honest, I really wasn't expecting to find much on YouTube after checking off and on for years without success.  However, I was shocked and thrilled to get a message from my friend Tom, who was also in attendance at the screening, with a link to the full song which was shared on YouTube by a contributor called Dirt T. Ryder just six weeks ago.  The lyrics are packed with nods to the original novel with references to the premonitions that Larry has of Mother Abigail and Randall Flagg, and the dental hygienist that he hooks up with in New York.  So, without further ado, here is the song that took me three decades to find.

 

Baby Can You Dig Your Man

Larry Underwood (1993)

I know you've got the hurt it's right there in your eyes

But here I am baby on my knees to apologize

There's nothing I won't do for the two of us

To make a stand

Baby can you dig your man

He's a righteous man

Tell me baby can you dig your man

In the quiet nights, I’ve seen her face

A beacon of hope in a fallen place

I’ve heard her call its a voice so kind

But the dark man’s grin lingers in my mind

Baby can you dig your man;

He's a righteous man

Tell me baby can you dig your man

I'll walk the streets, across an empty land

I'll do what's right ill make my stand

I’ve heard her words they hurt me deep

"You ain’t no nice guy"

They haunt me in my sleep

Baby can you dig your man

He's a righteous man

Tell me baby can you dig your man

I know I didn’t say I was comin down

I know you didn’t know I was here in town

I didn’t come to ask you to stay all night

Or to find out if you’ve seen the light

I didn’t come to make a fuss or pick a fight

Hey baby I come down here tonight

And I didn’t come to get in no fight

I just want you to say if you can

Tell me once and I’ll understand

Baby can you dig your man

He's a righteous man

Tell me baby can you dig your man

Didn't come to make a fuss or pick a fight

Just want you to tell me if you think you can

Baby can you dig your man