diff --git a/VERSION b/VERSION
deleted file mode 100644
index 7e32cd56..00000000
--- a/VERSION
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1 +0,0 @@
-1.3
diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 2f777af4..7e1e08fc 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -1,4 +1,6 @@
-AC_INIT([jq], [1.3], [mu@netsoc.tcd.ie],
+m4_define([jq_version], m4_esyscmd_s([git describe --always --dirty --match 'jq-*'|sed 's/^jq-//']))
+
+AC_INIT([jq], [jq_version], [mu@netsoc.tcd.ie],
              [jq], [http://stedolan.github.com/jq/])
 
 dnl Created autoconf implementation thompson@dtosolutions, 26NOV12
diff --git a/setup.sh b/setup.sh
index c63fc9cd..63dc899d 100755
--- a/setup.sh
+++ b/setup.sh
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ if [ "clean" == "$1" ]; then
   rm -f jv_utf8_tables.gen.h lexer.c lexer.h parser.c parser.h
 elif [ "superclean" == "$1" ]; then
   # if autoconf errors during distcheck, it leaves files that need chmod'ing
-  ver=$(tr -d '\n' <VERSION)
+  ver=$(scripts/version|tr -d '\n')
   if [ "x${ver}" != "x" ]; then
     if [ -d jq-${ver} ]; then
       chmod -R u+w jq-${ver}