50 Best Country Songs About Boats
Country boat songs that float a little sideways
There’s a specific kind of summer brain that kicks in once a boat motor turns over. Not fully relaxed, not totally wild, just somewhere in that blurry stretch between drifting and dumb decisions. Nobody plans for those boat days to feel like tiny fever dreams, but they always do. A cooler that’s half ice and half mystery, sunburn creeping in too early, somebody DJing from a phone that keeps overheating. And underneath it all, a song that sneaks in and sticks. Something twangy or slow or strangely emotional for how loud it’s playing. Some songs make sense docked. Others only hit when you're a few beers in and thirty feet from the shore.
Country music’s had a thing with boats for decades. Not in a polished, yacht-club way. More like beer cans clinking in the background, soaked towels everywhere, and the kind of laughter that turns into coughing. These tracks don’t sound like freedom, exactly. They sound like a loose kind of weightlessness that comes with floating on water while the world sort of fades out. And while other genres have had their ocean phases, pop, rock, country, and R&B songs have all taken a shot at floating, something about the southern drawl and the soft churn of an outboard engine just lines up too well.
Some of these songs lean warm. Some lean reckless. A couple might sneak up and hit a weird nerve when the sun’s dipping down and the water’s too quiet all of a sudden. This isn’t a playlist for pretending you're in a music video. It’s one for when you're out on the water with too much sky overhead and no real plans for the rest of the day. Here are the best country songs to play on a boat.
Top 10 Country Boat Songs
1. 'Buy Me a Boat'—Chris Janson
2. 'Pontoon'—Little Big Town
3. 'I Was on a Boat That Day'—Old Dominion
4. 'Redneck Yacht Club'—Craig Morgan
5. 'If I Had a Boat'—Lyle Lovett
6. 'Boats'—Kenny Chesney
7. 'Where the Boat Leaves From'—Zac Brown Band
8. 'Same Boat'—Zac Brown Band
9. 'Knee Deep'—Zac Brown Band feat. Jimmy Buffett
10. 'Somethin' 'Bout a Boat'—Jimmy Buffett
Country Songs About Water and Freedom #11—20
11. 'Drunk on a Boat'—Jake Owen
12. 'Boat Names'—Brian Kelley
13. 'Sail Away Home'—Mark Knopfler
14. 'A Pirate Looks at Forty'—Jimmy Buffett
15. 'The River'—Garth Brooks
16. 'Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay'—Otis Redding
17. 'No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems'—Kenny Chesney
18. 'Water'—Brad Paisley
19. 'Son of a Son of a Sailor'—Jimmy Buffett
20. 'Boat Drinks'—Jimmy Buffett
More Country Songs With a Boat Theme #21—30
21. 'Boats to Build'—Jimmy Buffett
22. 'Toes'—Zac Brown Band
23. 'Lovely Cruise'—Jimmy Buffett
24. 'Sail On, Sailor'—The Beach Boys
25. 'Come Sail Away'—Styx
26. 'I'm on a Boat'—The Lonely Island
27. 'Drive'—Alan Jackson
28. 'Southern Cross'—Crosby, Stills & Nash
29. 'Fast Boat to Sydney'—Darryl Worley
30. 'Better Boat'—Kenny Chesney
Country Songs With Boating in the Lyrics #31—40
31. 'It's Five O'Clock Somewhere'—Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett
32. 'Save It for a Rainy Day'—Kenny Chesney
33. 'Sailin' Around'—John Prine
34. 'The Downeaster Alexa'—Billy Joel
35. 'Cruise'—Florida Georgia Line
36. 'Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes'—Jimmy Buffett
37. 'One Particular Harbour'—Jimmy Buffett
38. 'On the Boat Again'—Brian Kelley
39. 'Pirate Flag'—Kenny Chesney
40. 'Sea Stories'—Sturgill Simpson
Top Country Hits About Boats and Water #41—50
41. 'Sailing'—Alabama
42. 'Nautical Wheelers'—Jimmy Buffett
43. 'Coast of Carolina'—Jimmy Buffett
44. 'Sail Away'—The Oak Ridge Boys
45. 'Chattahoochee'—Alan Jackson
46. 'All Summer Long'—Kid Rock
47. 'Kokomo'—The Beach Boys
48. 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald'—Gordon Lightfoot
49. 'Barefoot Blue Jean Night'—Jake Owen
50. 'When the Sun Goes Down'—Kenny Chesney and Uncle Kracker
© 2025 Carson McQueen
