50 Best Country Songs About Ships

Top Country Songs Featuring Ships

There’s a strange kind of pull when country songs lean on ships and water. It can feel wide open, like you’re drifting toward something uncertain, or heavy, like the weight of leaving behind what you know. Not every track here is literally locked on sails and decks, but they capture the same drift. Sometimes it’s the rhythm that rocks like waves, sometimes it’s the story that treats the ocean as a stand-in for distance, escape, or longing. Country music has always had that streak, though the theme cuts across pop, rock, country, and R&B songs too, which makes the whole idea more fluid than strict labels.

Think of how a ship can sound less like transport and more like memory. Some of these songs catch the loneliness of water stretching too far, others lean into the freedom of breaking away. The ship can carry heartbreak or hope depending on who’s steering, and country artists tend to lean into both without flinching. You get that flicker of wanderlust rubbing up against the ache of separation. That’s why tracks tied to this theme don’t always spell out the imagery in plain words, but they still land right in that place.

There’s no smooth montage for it. The mood shifts, crashes, and lingers in a way that keeps you guessing where the tide will pull next. A song can feel like goodbye one minute and like a celebration of the open horizon the next. These are the tracks that hold that restless energy and let it play out in country form. Here are the best country songs featuring ships.

1. 'Buy Me a Boat' by Chris Janson

2. 'Where the Boat Leaves From' by Zac Brown Band

3. 'Pontoon' by Little Big Town

4. 'Redneck Yacht Club' by Craig Morgan

5. 'If I Had a Boat' by Lyle Lovett

6. 'Sailing' by The Oak Ridge Boys

7. 'Boats' by Kenny Chesney

8. 'I Was on a Boat That Day' by Old Dominion

9. 'Sailor' by Petula Clark

10. 'The River' by Garth Brooks

11. 'Knee Deep' by Zac Brown Band featuring Jimmy Buffett

12. 'Son of a Son of a Sailor' by Jimmy Buffett

13. 'Chattahoochee' by Alan Jackson

14. 'Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes' by Jimmy Buffett

15. 'On the Boat Again' by Jake Owen

16. 'It's Five O'Clock Somewhere' by Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett

17. 'Margaritaville' by Jimmy Buffett

18. 'A Pirate Looks at Forty' by Jimmy Buffett

19. 'Southern Cross' by Crosby, Stills & Nash

20. 'Where the Boat Leaves From' by Zac Brown Band

21. 'Sail Away' by The Oak Ridge Boys

22. 'Toes' by Zac Brown Band

23. 'No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems' by Kenny Chesney

24. 'Summertime' by Kenny Chesney

25. 'Save It for a Rainy Day' by Kenny Chesney

26. 'Pirate Flag' by Kenny Chesney

27. 'The Seashores of Old Mexico' by George Strait

28. 'Drive (For Daddy Gene)' by Alan Jackson

29. 'For A Boat' by Luke Bryan

30. 'The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald' by Gordon Lightfoot

31. 'When the Sun Goes Down' by Kenny Chesney featuring Uncle Kracker

32. 'Southern Cross' by Crosby, Stills & Nash

33. 'Where the Boat Leaves From' by Zac Brown Band

34. 'Boats to Build' by Guy Clark

35. 'The Gulf of Mexico' by Clint Black

36. 'Island in the Sun' by Weezer

37. 'Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)' by Looking Glass

38. 'Lost Sailor' by Grateful Dead

39. 'Come Sail Away' by Styx

40. 'Sloop John B' by The Beach Boys

41. 'Sailing' by Christopher Cross

42. 'Drunken Sailor' by The Irish Rovers

43. 'When the Ship Comes In' by Bob Dylan

44. 'The Downeaster 'Alexa'' by Billy Joel

45. 'Soul of a Sailor' by Kenny Chesney

46. 'Coconut' by Harry Nilsson

47. 'Jamaica Farewell' by Harry Belafonte

48. 'Single Handed Sailor' by Dire Straits

49. 'Ship of Fools' by Grateful Dead

50. 'I'm On A Boat' by The Lonely Island