Songs that feel like gentle swell

I once ran a barn dance band. During one rehearsal evening our mandolin player couldn’t get the rhythm of an Athabascan tune. He spent most of his life sailing alone around the world in his rusty steel yacht. I suggested he could think of each eight bar repeated section as the ocean swell, think of each bar as a wind wave, and think of each note as a ripple on the face of each wave. He got the rhythm of the tune straight away.
Nick.

Wood smoke and Oranges by Ian Tamblyn
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvTpQAfwDUM

True And Deep by Jerry Vandiver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccm6U_htzG0

Judy Collins’ rendition of the traditional song of whaling in Greenland “Farewell to Tarwathie” in which she is accompanied by recordings of humpback whales singing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oY_65QY8VAc

Canadian folk-rocker Bruce Cockburn has a lot of such cuts. Here’s one, “Look How Far”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2bW30NJIxw

Also Cockburn’s evocative “The End of All Rivers” – no lyrics but a river theme and definite paddling cadence (images are the Amazon):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Ut73IXrz0

I keep thinking of more Cockburn pieces, especially the solo guitar instrumentals that he usually includes in his albums. Another one that evokes surf and drifting: “Islands in a Black Sky”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Td5R8PXjA

Santana’s “Canto de Los Flores” from the album “Borboletta”. The dominant rhythm feels like ocean swells and the percussion is like paddle cadence:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IllLIxiXaGY

Castoff! Love the Emmylou tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90M60PzmxEE

Back in the High Life by Steve Winwood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMAKik3FcVQ

My musical horizons have been expanded.

@Rex said:
Castoff! Love the Emmylou tune.

You might like this one then.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oz6V0HXRg8M

Emmylou can make “Happy Birthday to You” sound like art.

Since everyone else is providing music links, here is the one that got me thinking about swells.

https://youtu.be/9bKwRW0l-Qk

Beautiful. Great topic. Thanks.

a long time favorite sea farin’ song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cBsnopTVmo
Jimmy Buffett performing Southern Cross
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7Ah-Ch8NQ4
This song by Mean Mary has become another sea farin’ favorite
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6uSCAeOujo

Thank you all for the threaded musical respite.

One song that comes to mind for me, whenst rolling the topknot vessel over those rhythmic gentle swells sought by pikabike, is this somewhat dirge-like but peaceful tribute to cetaceans by CSN:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1f7d5NvJj9s

Then, there is this one by Van, which, though I’m not particularly a religious fellow, struck a reverent and rhythmic reminder into my paddled cadence as I canoed out over the not-so-gently wind-chopped, dark Assateague waters, one November evening years back:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCLyFGgVdZM

No longer a Christian, but I tend to sing this when paddling in heavy chop …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TgJG6OUjAc

Leo Kottke

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmPkBQ04XE4