50 Best Country Songs About Rivers

Best Country River Songs to Play Loud

There’s something that sticks when a song ties itself to water. A river isn’t calm in the way a lake is, and it isn’t wild in the way an ocean is. It moves steady and restless, like a memory you keep circling back to. Country music has a knack for using rivers to hold the stuff people don’t say out loud. That stretch of water becomes the place where heartbreak hides, or where someone finally admits they’re tired of running. The best tracks lean into that push and pull without trying to neaten it up.

Some of these songs don’t literally focus on rivers but they catch the feeling anyway. You hear the steady drift in the way a chorus rises, or the churn in the guitar that sounds like muddy water pulling at your boots. The river becomes more than a backdrop, it’s the current dragging the story forward. Country isn’t alone in this—plenty of pop, rock, country, and R&B songs have borrowed rivers as a stage for big moments. In country though, it’s tied tighter to dirt roads, back porches, and restless nights that never fully close.

The tracks here capture that messy stretch between calm and chaos, the kind that makes you lean in instead of skip ahead. Some are sad, some loud, some stubbornly hopeful in ways that don’t make sense until you’ve played them three or four times. These are the best country songs tied to rivers.

1. 'The River' by Garth Brooks

2. 'Chattahoochee' by Alan Jackson

3. 'Big River' by Johnny Cash

4. 'Whiskey River' by Willie Nelson

5. 'Tennessee River' by Alabama

6. 'The Gambler' by Kenny Rogers

7. 'Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man' by Loretta Lynn & Conway Twitty

8. 'Proud Mary' by Creedence Clearwater Revival

9. 'Down to the River to Pray' by Alison Krauss

10. 'The River's Own' by Chris Knight

11. 'Black Water' by The Doobie Brothers

12. 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' by John Denver

13. 'Roll on Columbia' by Woody Guthrie

14. 'Green River' by Creedence Clearwater Revival

15. 'Between the River and Me' by Tim McGraw

16. 'River of Love' by George Strait

17. 'You, Me & The River' by Chris Janson ft. Eric Church

18. 'Can't You See' by The Marshall Tucker Band

19. 'Five Feet High and Rising' by Johnny Cash

20. 'River of Happiness' by Dolly Parton

21. 'River Bank' by Brad Paisley

22. 'Gonna Take a Lot of River' by The Oak Ridge Boys

23. 'Fishin' in the Dark' by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band

24. 'Deep River Blues' by Doc Watson

25. 'Wabash Cannonball' by Roy Acuff

26. 'Down the River' by Chris Knight

27. 'Till the Rivers All Run Dry' by Don Williams

28. 'On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away' by The Jordanaires

29. 'River Song' by Charley Pride

30. 'The River and the Highway' by Pam Tillis

31. 'The River' by Chely Wright

32. 'Moon River' by Willie Nelson

33. 'Where the River Flows' by Collin Raye

34. 'Banks of the Ohio' by The Carter Family

35. 'Kern River' by Merle Haggard

36. 'Shenandoah' by The Statler Brothers

37. 'Way Down Yonder' by Lefty Frizzell

38. 'Ode to Billie Joe' by Bobbie Gentry

39. 'River of Tears' by Jimmy Martin

40. 'Mississippi' by Charlie Daniels Band

41. 'That Was a River' by Collin Raye

42. 'Blue River' by Elvis Presley

43. 'Running Down the River' by Jim & Jesse

44. 'Whiskey, River & You' by Ian Munsick

45. 'The River Is Wide' by The Statler Brothers

46. 'I'm a River' by Charlie Worsham

47. 'Down by the Water' by The White Buffalo

48. 'Let the River Run' by The Kingston Trio

49. 'Where the River Runs' by Charley Pride

50. 'I'm Gonna Miss Her' by Brad Paisley