The Mock Turtles

The Mock Turtles – Can You Dig It?

(1991 – included on the album "Turtle Soup", Siren Records)

Every music scene has, for every band that broke through, a counterweight amounting to a handful (in the most optimistic scenario) of bands left in the shadows. Legions of nobodies who may have even helped create that scene — ennobled by the adjective "seminal" in some obscure posthumous anthology — others who tried to ride its wave, only to be thrown off in little more than a flash, or finally one-hit wonders, those who did manage to land a track on the charts, only to watch silence descend on them once again.

Firmly belonging to this last category is the story we're about to tell, a story starring five young men from Middleton, a town in the metropolitan area northeast of Manchester. Their name was The Mock Turtles, and their moment of grace coincided with a single first released in 1991, which then made a comeback eleven years later, in 2002: "Can You Dig It?".

The Mock Turtles, then: who were they? That question, straight out of Manzoni, must have spontaneously come to the lips of hundreds of thousands of Her Majesty's subjects who, sitting comfortably in front of their living-room television, kept hearing that refrain over and over in a major telecom company's ad. It was 2002, the so-called Britpop movement had already run its course, let alone the even older baggy scene. And yet... and yet that chorus, so melodic and infectious, must have reignited memories in some sharper-eyed viewers, perhaps those who had been young and "in the know" between the Eighties and Nineties. So where did that earworm come from?

To find out, we need to take another leap backwards in time. In 1985, in Middleton, on the imaginary and geographical fringes of what would soon be dubbed "Madchester", a young man named Martin Coogan, after his stint in Judge Happiness, decided to put together a new musical venture and brought four other local young men on board. If that surname rang a bell, let's put the doubt to rest right away: Martin is indeed the older brother of Steve Coogan, the actor who a couple of decades later would play Tony Wilson in the film "24 Hour Party People".

By the time Martin Coogan formed his new band, The Mock Turtles, the main players of the coming season were already on the city's scene: the likes of Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Inspiral Carpets were cutting their teeth behind the scenes, and could only embody that gust of freshness starting to be felt in the air. That a brand-new sound was on its way was already clear to the Mock Turtles — by then settled into a line-up rounded out by Joanne Gent on keyboards, Andrew Stewardson on bass, Martin Glyn Murray on second guitar and Steve Cowen on drums — who in 1987 put out a debut single (titled "Pomona") that went completely unnoticed. In 1989 they tried again with a far-from-negligible "Wicker Man", more in line with a Smiths-style pop-rock sensibility, quickly followed by "And Then She Smiles", perfectly in tune with "Madchester" and in step with the contemporary output of Inspiral Carpets, bolstered by a catchy chorus that deserved far more attention than the scant amount it actually received.

The singles released piecemeal eventually fed into the debut album "Turtle Soup", released in June 1991. Of the eleven tracks on the tracklist, though, it would only be the tenth, one that broke into the UK top 20: it's called "Can You Dig It" and, as often happens, it first appeared quietly, in the most classic of guises, as a B-side. The year before, in fact, the British quintet had put out another single, "Lay Me Down", in yet another attempt to hitch a ride on the Madchester bandwagon (the song, for the record, wasn't even bad). They needed a B-side, and the Mock Turtles decided to include "Can You Dig It?". The inspiration, as Martin would later recall, came to him during a dinner at home with friends. Without drawing attention to himself, he slipped off into another room and worked out the chords on guitar. The title (roughly translatable as "can you feel it?") had been inspired in Coogan by watching Walter Hill's cult film "The Warriors", but probably also by the identically titled track by The Monkees (1968), and around that questioning phrase they built a simple, direct lyric that could allude both to drug use and to a youthful love story, plus, on a secondary level, a decidedly baggy groove that culminated in a chorus as inspired as it was catchy. A potential hit, in other words.

And that's exactly what it turned out to be. The following year, alongside the launch of "Turtle Soup", "Can You Dig It?" was re-released as a proper single. In the meantime, the song had been polished up, the guitars recalibrated and the mastering refined. The restyling job paid off: the single shot straight into the UK Singles Chart, reaching number eighteen. In the video accompanying its release, Coogan is dressed up like Ian Brown and shuffles about a bit awkwardly with the typical moves of local hero Bez, while the band plays lined up around him. Confirming the song's success, right on schedule, came the Mock Turtles' appearance on Top Of The Pops.

The song opens with Coogan's electric guitar stretching out in a lysergic fingerstyle pattern, gradually joined by a vaguely funky rhythm section, keyboards, the second guitar and finally Martin's voice. The verse triggers a carefree, bittersweet chorus, a kind of bridge between the dreamy atmospheres of the La's' "There She Goes" and the melodic flourishes that Pulp and Blur would later bring, without ever giving up the danceable gait that was an integral part of guitar pop at the time. The solo that follows the second chorus also deserves a mention, heightening the psychedelic feel before the final chorus. Positioned exactly at the junction between late-Eighties pop, Madchester's stylistic tics and the first stirrings of Britpop, "Can You Dig It?" is the quintessence of a season overflowing with ideas, some already spent, others still waiting to be developed.

"Can You Dig It?" remains, however, the Mock Turtles' one and only real hit. A couple of years later the five-piece released their second album, "Two Sides", before going their separate ways. While the band's trajectory fizzled out along with the interest of an audience already looking elsewhere, the single was destined for a second life. When "Can You Dig It?" was chosen in 2002 to soundtrack a British TV advert, it became a hit all over again. So much so that none other than Fatboy Slim paid tribute to it, teaming up with Simon Thornton in 2003 on a remix released by Virgin: without overhauling the song, the new version was given a fuller sound and fresh synth touches. Riding the wave of the revival, Virgin also put out the Mock Turtles' greatest hits that same year. Can you dig it?

Can you understand me now

I'll get it through somehow

You won't ever get me down

Won't see me hanging around

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it what I'm saying

One little kiss isn't anything

I won't be sad

Someone turned a light on

See how big and strong I’ve grown

I'm standing on my own

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it what I'm saying

One little kiss isn't anything

You keep insisting on everyting

I won't be sad

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it? Oh yeah

Can you dig it what I'm saying

One little kiss isn't anything

You keep insisting on everyting

I won't be sad

Someone turned a light on

Ride the wave of great music

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07/03/2026