ESPN's Alabama Football Radio Guru Paul Finebaum Releases Country Song

Um...what?

You read that right. ESPN radio pundit Paul Finebaum, knower of all things SEC football and critic of all things Johnny Manziel, dropped a country music jam with industry mogul Walt Aldridge.

According to Bob Carlton of AL.com, the project came to be after an innocuous half-joke from Finebaum.

"

“I jokingly said to [Aldridge], ‘I’ve always wanted to write a song,’” Finebaum recalls. “It’s the kind of thing you say to a songwriter. He came back to me and said, ‘If you are serious, I would like to talk to you about it.’”

"

Finebaum was off the air for a while this summer, leading up to the premiere of his new Charlotte-based show this month. He's taken the vacation as an opportunity to explore new channels; in addition to this musical endeavor, he's also writing a memoir on his time in the radio business.

But can he really make the switch from AM to FM?

Titled "Here and my Crazy Dreams," the song doesn't sound, musically, like an amateur foray. That's what happens when you work with a country music veteran like Aldridge. But some of the lyrics—Finebaum's contribution to the project—feel kind of stilted.

Here's how the song opens:

"

Everybody that I grew up with

Knows exactly where they'll be the rest of their lives.

Who they'll marry and how many kids

They're gonna have and where they'll be the day that they die.

"

Every wannabe songwriter out there who yearns to be poignant but has never cut an actual lyric before, take heed: This is what your first attempt might look like.

Aldridge, for what it's worth, likes the song. According to the report, he could see both new-school artists like Luke Bryan and old-school guys like George Strait cutting this track.

No comment was offered from Bryan or Strait.

But reactions to the song should be (and are) subjective. If you really like it, that's your rightful opinion and prerogative. Perhaps you hope Finebaum follows this vocation and quits his day job.

Then again, as he's one of the most divisive figures in football media, those who hate it might hope the same thing.