Football season is here – college just began and the pros start this week – and with it there’s the opportunity for those who may enjoy the occasional wager (not me, actually). One of the most elementary bets is the “Over/Under” which, for anyone unfamiliar, is basically venturing as to whether a given activity will be more or less than a quantity pre-set by all-knowing Vegas oddsmakers.

For instance, if a New York J-E-T-S fan would have put easy money on their newly acquired savior, Aaron Rodgers, to have appeared in 5 or more plays the entire 2023 season…they’d have lost. Jets hopes crashed when the fake-immunized Rodgers’ season ended after just four plays of the first game (guess there’s no vax for bad karma). Or, if a blue-turf Boise State booster speculated wildly that running back Ashton Jeanty would somehow score 5 or more touchdowns in a single game this year…they’d already have won. The 5’9” dynamo rushed for a ridiculous 6 TD’s in last weekend’s season opening Broncos win.

All of which has nothing to do with music – except as an excuse to create a new themed SMGM playlist. My friend Chin recently pointed out the abundance of songs that include either “over” or “under” in the titles, and then did most of the research to provide a host of examples. From Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Over My Head’ to the Stones’ ‘Under My Thumb,’ Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ to The Drifters classic ‘Under The Boardwalk,’ and Dave Clark Five’s ‘Glad All Over’ to Albert King’s ‘Born Under A Bad Sign.’ An ‘over’ followed by an ‘under’, over and over.

In all, we’ve got 16 matched sets: 16 “overs” and 16 “unders.” But, if I told you the “Over/Under” for the playlist was 32 total tunes, you’d still be wise to smash the over; we wind up the list with a combined ‘over/under’ nugget from the Yardbirds of ‘Over Under Sideways Down.’ Seemed apropos.

Think that extension should come under scrutiny? Get over it.