diff --git a/meson.build b/meson.build
index a8afa0dd2f..99d203d145 100644
--- a/meson.build
+++ b/meson.build
@@ -555,15 +555,24 @@ endif
 
 #####################################################################
 
-vcs_tagger = [project_source_root + '/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh',
-              project_source_root,
-              get_option('version-tag'),
-              meson.project_version()]
+version_tag = get_option('version-tag')
+if version_tag != ''
+        vcs_data = configuration_data()
+        vcs_data.set('VCS_TAG', version_tag)
+        version_h = configure_file(configuration : vcs_data,
+                                   input : 'src/version/version.h.in',
+                                   output : 'version.h')
+else
+        vcs_tagger = [
+                project_source_root + '/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh',
+                project_source_root,
+                meson.project_version()]
 
-version_h = vcs_tag(
-        input : 'src/version/version.h.in',
-        output : 'version.h',
-        command: vcs_tagger)
+        version_h = vcs_tag(
+                input : 'src/version/version.h.in',
+                output : 'version.h',
+                command: vcs_tagger)
+endif
 
 versiondep = declare_dependency(sources: version_h)
 
diff --git a/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh b/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh
index 1c3814d483..a285210f96 100755
--- a/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh
+++ b/tools/meson-vcs-tag.sh
@@ -4,13 +4,7 @@ set -eu
 set -o pipefail
 
 dir="$1"
-tag="$2"
-fallback="$3"
-
-if [ -n "$tag" ]; then
-    echo "$tag"
-    exit 0
-fi
+fallback="$2"
 
 # 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