1983 · BEHIND THE SONGS
She’s got legs — and the video that made them famous.
“Legs” (1983) was the third single from Eliminator, released in 1984, and it became ZZ Top’s highest-charting hit of the era, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song itself is a strutting, synth-driven groove — Billy Gibbons’s guitar slinking around a lyric that is equal parts admiration and playfulness. But “Legs” is remembered as much for its video as its sound.
The video, a continuation of the Eliminator mythology, features the red 1933 Ford coupe and a trio of women who transform a shy shoe clerk’s life. It won the MTV Video Music Award for Best Group Video in 1984, cementing ZZ Top as video-era stars. The band — beards, shades, and all — appear as benevolent observers, letting the car and the models do the talking.
What to listen for: the bassline — Dusty Hill’s playing is the song’s secret engine — and the way Gibbons’s solo seems to wink at the listener. “Legs” is ZZ Top at their most commercial and most themselves: a great groove, a memorable hook, and not a hint of pretension.