Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard and Dusty Hill have been cranking out tunes since 1969 as ZZ Top. Let me put that into perspective for you: the band is only four years younger than my mother. The album Eliminator is older than I am by two freaking months. Yet, as I’m writing this, I’m hours away from seeing the trio perform live and I couldn’t be more psyched. I can thank everybody who was supposed to be watching me when I was a kid for not doing their job, because one of the first cars I could ever identify was “Eliminator” itself, Billy Gibbons’ iconic ’33 Ford coupe, and that was because I always saw it on MTV in the videos, rolling up with Jeana Tomasino, Kymberly Herrin, and Daniéle Arnaud hopping out to brighten up the day of a teenager with smiles, style and a lot of shaking. Each video was pretty much the same: the trio showed up as benevolent spirits, handed off the keys complete with ZZ keychain, and things turn awesome.

There were three “Eliminator” videos, but out of them I picked “Legs” simply because it managed to sneak one past the FCC, MTV and practically every radio station in the nation. I didn’t hear this song censored until 2011, and by then, like Pink Floyd’s “Money” and others, you would’ve thought it would have just been grandfathered in. Plus, this was the song that really showcased ZZ Top’s embrace of synthesizers, a radical departure from their earlier sound but what gave them a strong life in the Eighties.