Songfacts®:

• This is the debut country solo single released by Ryan Follesé, best known as the frontman of the pop rock band Hot Chelle Rae. Follesé penned the song with his Nashville songwriter father Keith Follesé, his mother Adrienne Follesé, brother and Hot Chelle Rae bandmate Jamie Follesé and good friend Cameron Montgomery.
• Follesé told The Boot the story of the song:
  
  "Cameron played this guitar part. He played the first two bits of it, and it was really cool, and we liked it. Then he hit this super-weird note, this blue note, which is a jazzier kind of note. He did that, and everybody in the room was like, 'Whoa.' He thought he had done something so wrong, and we were like, 'No, we love that.' My brother said, 'It reminds me of something like floating or something like that.' I was like, 'I just wrote down a title in my notepad the other day that was 'Float Your Boat.''"
• Follesé explained the song's meaning:
  
  "The whole concept was not just about being on a boat, but about doing what makes you happy, and that's what I'm doing. So we wrote it from the perspective of living your life and doing what you want and doing what makes you happy, because, truthfully, life goes quick, and if you're not doing what makes you happy, then you're wasting your time. That was how the concept came together."
• The phrase "To float one's boat" means to appeal or excite someone. The picture is of a grounded boat being freed by rising water or the incoming tide. The phrase is frequently used in a sexual manner – rapper D.O.E., for instance, spits on Timbaland's hit single "The Way I Are," "Listen baby girl, I ain't got a motorboat but I can float your boat."