Legs - 2008 Remaster

In a 1985 interview with Spin magazine, ZZ Top guitarist Billy Gibbons explained the inspiration for this song: "I was driving in Los Angeles, and there was this unusual downpour. And there was a real pretty girl on the side of the road. I passed her, and then I thought, 'Well, I'd better pull over' or at least turn around and offer her a ride, and by the time I got back she was gone. Her legs were the first thing I noticed. Then I noticed that she had a Brooke Shields hairdo that was in danger of falling. She was not going to get wet. She had legs and she knew how to use them."

Feminist groups criticized this song for objectifying women, although ZZ Top had been releasing songs with playful, yet sexually charged lyrics for years. Their first hit was "Tush" in 1975, which was probably more offensive, but the band was less popular then so it drew fewer protests.

The video was very popular. Just like their videos for "Gimme All Your Lovin'" and "Sharp Dressed Man," it featured Billy Gibbons' 1933 Ford Hot Rod, which he called The Eliminator. The big difference in "Legs" is that the main character is a girl. The video had the same director (Tim Newman) and featured the three "Eliminator Girls," but instead of sweeping a guy off in the Eliminator, the models rescue a girl who desperately needs some confidence. They give her a makeover and teach her how to handle guys to get what she wants. The band also appeared in the clip, but were secondary to the girls and the car. Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill had been growing their beards for four years, so they were instantly recognizable, and the shot of their fuzzy guitars rotating when they took their hands off the instruments became a classic early-MTV image. The network was in its third year and did not have a huge amount of videos in its library, and "Legs" became a mainstay.