50 Best Country Songs About Floods
Country flood songs that capture the chaos and grit
There’s a certain mood that hits when the water starts creeping higher than it should. Not panic exactly, not relief either, but something stuck between disbelief and a low hum of worry. You’re standing at the edge of a field where the fence line used to be, watching the current drag away what’s left of last week. The right song in that moment doesn’t try to soothe you. It matches the pull in your gut, the heaviness in the air. The way a slow-moving disaster makes time feel bent and strange.
Nobody rides out a flood clean. It’s hauling sandbags in the dark, coffee gone cold on the counter, voices rising over the roar that’s louder than it needs to be. And when the music starts, it cuts through in a way that feels almost too sharp. Maybe it’s Johnny Cash telling the story like it’s already history. Maybe it’s a bluegrass band pushing the tempo as if speed could hold the river back. Or a track from a list of pop, rock, country, and R&B songs where the water takes on a life of its own. These aren’t songs that look away from the mess. They stay knee-deep in it.
Floods change the shape of everything they touch. Towns, roads, even the way people stand next to each other once the water’s gone. Some tracks sound like they’ve been there, others like they’re bracing for it to happen again. Either way, the music hangs in the air like humidity, heavy and impossible to ignore. Here are the best country songs on floods worth hearing.
Top 10 Flood Country Songs
1. 'Five Feet High and Rising'—Johnny Cash
2. 'The Thunder Rolls'—Garth Brooks
3. 'I'm No Stranger to the Rain'—Keith Whitley
4. 'Louisiana 1927'—Randy Newman
5. 'Back Water Blues'—Bessie Smith
6. 'The Flood'—Charles Wesley Godwin
7. 'Every Storm (Runs Out of Rain)'—Gary Allan
8. 'Come Hell or High Water'—Pistol Annies
9. 'Texas Flood'—Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble
10. 'Mississippi Heavy Water Blues'—Barbecue Bob
Country Music Flood Themes #11—20
11. 'Flood'—Jars of Clay
12. 'High Water Everywhere'—Charley Patton
13. 'When the Levee Breaks'—Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie
14. 'Rising Water'—Dusty Drake
15. 'Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall'—Bob Dylan
16. 'Let the Rain Come Down'—Brent Cobb
17. 'Down to the River'—The Wailin' Jennys
18. 'A River in the Rain'—Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
19. 'Hold On Tight'—Chris Stapleton
20. 'Flood Waters'—Mac Powell
Music About Flooding and Water Damage #21—30
21. 'Dry Run'—Brandy Clark
22. 'The Great Flood'—The Handsome Family
23. 'Water'—Brad Paisley
24. 'Watermark'—Enya
25. 'Down to the Waterline'—Dire Straits
26. 'Bridge Over Troubled Water'—Simon and Garfunkel
27. 'The River'—Garth Brooks
28. 'Hell On Heels'—Pistol Annies
29. 'Big River'—Johnny Cash
30. 'Bad Rain'—Allman Brothers Band
Country Songs on Overcoming Disaster #31—40
31. 'The Water Is Wide'—James Taylor
32. 'The River's Gonna Run'—Deana Carter
33. 'Where the River Flows'—Luke Bryan
34. 'Muddy Water'—Trace Adkins
35. 'The Flood'—Joshua Hyslop
36. 'Floods of the Mississippi'—The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
37. 'Hold Back the River'—James Bay
38. 'The House That Built Me'—Miranda Lambert
39. 'My House Is Flooded'—Jorma Kaukonen
40. 'Ridin' the Storm Out'—REO Speedwagon
More Country Songs on Rising Water #41—50
41. 'Waterbound'—Dirk Powell with Tim O'Brien
42. 'Floodgate'—The Avett Brothers
43. 'Troubled Waters'—The Carter Family
44. 'Wade in the Water'—Eva Cassidy
45. 'The Rising'—Bruce Springsteen
46. 'Whiskey River'—Willie Nelson
47. 'Where the River Meets the Road'—Dierks Bentley
48. 'Muddy Water'—The Louvin Brothers
49. 'The River'—Josh Turner
50. 'Kentucky Flood'—Josiah and the Bonnevilles
© 2025 Carson McQueen
