diff --git a/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh b/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh
index a8605b6bc9..5dc95fa8c1 100755
--- a/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh
+++ b/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh
@@ -15,4 +15,8 @@ fi
 # Apparently git describe has a bug where it always considers the work-tree
 # dirty when invoked with --git-dir (even though 'git status' is happy). Work
 # around this issue by cd-ing to the source directory.
-cd "$dir" && git describe --abbrev=7 --dirty=+ 2>/dev/null | sed 's/^v//' || echo "$fallback"
+cd "$dir"
+# Check that we have either .git/ (a normal clone) or a .git file (a work-tree)
+# and that we don't get confused if a tarball is extracted in a higher-level
+# git repository.
+[ -e .git ] && git describe --abbrev=7 --dirty=+ 2>/dev/null | sed 's/^v//' || echo "$fallback"