By Gabriel Smith

This post uses the career and style of ZZ Top to highlight a few key lessons for student writers, like keeping things simple, developing a consistent voice, and embracing revision. Rather than focus exclusively on lyrical content, it looks more at the band’s overall approach—their sound, identity, and ability to evolve—and connects those ideas to the college writing classroom. In the end, it shows that strong writing, like great music, comes down to clarity, consistency, and a willingness to adapt.

A few months ago, my neighbor asked me if I wanted to go see ZZ Top on their upcoming tour, and I didn’t think twice: “Absolutely,” I said. As a product of the MTV generation, those sunglasses, swinging beards, and spinning guitars are burned into my being and serve as part of my musical upbringing, but I only ever really knew the hits – “Legs,” “Sharp Dressed Man,” “Gimme All Your Lovin’” (ZZ Top, 1983) and the other charting tracks from the 70s and early 80s. So, to prepare for this show, I’ve been listening to a lot of ZZ Top lately. A whole lot. Too much, if you ask my wife. And while some of their lyrics blatantly objectify women, there’s no denying that their catalog of hits is timelessly woven into the fabric of American music. As I’ve been immersing myself in both their chart toppers and the deep cuts, I’ve been thinking less about the innuendos and double entendres and more about the strategies that they use as songwriters, musicians, and performers. And many of those strategies can easily be applied to the college writing classroom. 

Here’s what I’ve been learning about writing from ZZ Top.

Simplicity Is Powerful

All too often, student writers tend to think that offering something complicated helps their work seem more scholarly, more academic. But in entry level writing courses, we really need to focus on setting a foundation that our students can build upon as they develop their skills and practice the craft. The familiar blues driven riffs and stripped-down instrumentation of ZZ Top demonstrate the impact that simplicity can have on a composition. We don’t need an orchestral background or digital samples to effectively convey the groove and the tone of the song. And lyrically, it doesn’t get much simpler than their 1983 Billboard top-ten track, “Sharp Dressed Man.”

Clean shirt, new shoes / And I don’t know where I am goin’ to / Silk suit, black tie (black tie) / I don’t need a reason why / They come runnin’ just as fast as they can / ‘Cause every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man

(ZZ Top, 1983)

Of the three simple verses in the song, each affirms a singular message about the speaker’s successful use of strategic wardrobe in order to attract some company – “Gold watch, diamond ring / I ain’t missin’ not a single thing” (ZZ Top, 1983).  Clear and straight to the point. The power of the song comes through in its effortless musical construction – that classic ZZ blues rock sound – in concert with its accessible and repetitive lyrical content. Rhythm and blues music – as noted by Parada-Cabaleiro et al. (2024) – relies on “the most repetitive lyrics” and presents the “easiest” readability of musical genres (p. 1). And for most of their career, that signature simplicity served as a slogan for Billy Gibbons, ZZ’s guitarist and primary songwriter, as he often promoted the band as the “same three guys, same three chords” (McKittrick, 2024). Simple. 

Lesson to writers: Keep it simple so that your point comes through as clearly as possible and confirm that message by being consistent. There’s always time to polish and add flourishes down the road, but what’s most important is that the message being sent is received and processed by the audience without uncertainty or unclarity. If you’re looking for love, conventional ZZ wisdom suggests that some simple attention to detail can increase your prospects because “every girl crazy ’bout a sharp dressed man” (ZZ Top, 1983).

Consistency Builds Identity

In the world of rock and roll, there’s no more iconic, visually identifiable group than ZZ Top. The long beards, dark sunglasses, and sharp suits are as much a part of their legend as their multiplatinum albums, and that’s something that is very different from most of their contemporaries. As an audience, we’re captivated by the whole package – the look, the sound, and the repetition that comes with their Texas interpretation of traditional blues music.  That isn’t to say that Dusty Hill, Billy Gibbons, and Frank Beard have always appeared as the cartoonish looking trio that we’ve come to know, but the look does coincide with their rise in global popularity. 

After nonstop touring from 1969 until 1976 and with an impending change of record label, ZZ Top took a two-year hiatus and reemerged as the bearded icons that we know today (DiVita, 2024). So, from 1979 until Hill’s death in 2021, those two swinging beards were a consistent trademark of the band. That consistency in image paralleled their musical style which maintained the deep grooves of blues rock even as the band experimented with additional instrumentation and recording techniques. And this imagery became even more solidified in popular culture when their first music video – “Gimme All Your Lovin’” – premiered on the fledgling network, MTV, in 1983 (Dunn & McFadyen, 2019).

As writers, we learn and we grow by repetition and revision, and we build our own unique voice and style by consistently reaffirming the vision that we want to share with the world. In the same way that we can recognize the prose of Hemingway or the poetry of Emily Dickinson with just a few lines or words, ZZ Top projects their identity through repetitive blues bars, simple lyrics, and unique visual style. 

Lesson to writers: Find your voice, find your style, and actively work to make it as original as possible. If we want to engage an audience, we need to show them that our writing brings a unique perspective into the greater discourse … something that I’m always pushing my students to do.

Adapt Without Losing Your Core

As a composition instructor working primarily in the competency-based classroom, a large part of my workday involves offering feedback on student writing to help them through the process of revision. Revising and refining the things that we write is a crucial part of the writing process and a pillar of competency-based education. The things that we write need to evolve, to grow, and to get better while maintaining and expanding upon our original voice. 

ZZ Top’s signature blues rock sound was originally established with the commercial success of two releases – Tres Hombres (1973) and Fandango! (1975) – but with the advent of music television, the band adapted to the changing times, experimented with synthesizers and drum machines, and fully embraced the visual medium of the music video with Eliminator (ZZ Top, 1983). The synth-laden opening of “Legs,” for instance, marks an update of their classic sound. An adaptation, a revision. And it was this little tweak – in conjunction with the popularity of the video format – that allowed ZZ Top to permeate global musical culture. 

Lesson to writers: Change is good and revision is the best way to make your work as effective as possible. Being flexible with the things that we write helps us navigate this constantly evolving world, and that’s something that our students need to remember. 

Modern technology gives all writers access to a global audience, so being flexible and willing to revise in order to meet the needs of our audience can ultimately lead us to a successful essay, a perfectly phrased passage, a polished poetic form, or – in the case of ZZ Top – seven platinum albums and a 57-year career as “That Little Ol’ Band from Texas.”

Suggested Listening/Watching

• “Sharp Dressed Man” (ZZ Top, 1983) – Official music video presented by Rhino. 
• “Gimme All Your Lovin’” (ZZ Top, 1983) – Official music video presented by Rhino.
• “Legs” (ZZ Top, 1983) – Official music video presented by Rhino. 
• Film: ZZ Top: That Little Ol’ Band from Texas (Dunn & McFadyen, 2019).

References 

DiVita, J. (2024, April 2). Why ZZ Top decided to grow their big ol’ beards. Loudwire. https://loudwire.com/why-zz-top-grew-beards

Dunn, S., & McFadyen, R. (Directors). (2019). ZZ Top: That little ol’ band from Texas [Film]. Banger Films.

McKittrick, C. (2024). Gimme all your lovin’: The blues, boogie, and beard of ZZ Top’s Billy F. Gibbons. Backbeat Books.

Parada-Cabaleiro, E., Mayerl, M., Brandl, S., Skowron, M., Schedl, M., Lex, E., & Zangerle, E. (2024). Song lyrics have become simpler and more repetitive over the last five decades. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-55742-x

ZZ Top. (1973). Tres hombres [Album]. London Records.

ZZ Top. (1975). Fandango! [Album]. London Records.

ZZ Top. (1983). Eliminator [Album]. Warner Brothers. 

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About the Author

Gabriel Smith is a faculty member in English and Rhetoric at Purdue University Global where he teaches composition and serves as course lead for the competency-based writing class, CM220M. He is also a longtime musician and record collector who draws on music to help students think about voice and style.