What do Boyz II Men, Jann Arden and Bruce Springsteen have in common? They’re all part of local musician Don Amero’s list of all-time favourite love songs.

“Relationship songs make the industry work and love songs are a major component of that,” Amero explained by phone last week. “When you look at the big songs out there, they’re love songs, especially in the country genre. You get it in the rock songs too, about relationships breaking up.”

Amero, 28, recently quit his job as a hardwood flooring installer to concentrate on his music career. He’s about to release his sophomore CD, Deepening, a radio-ready collection of smooth, acoustic-based pop songs that falls somewhere between Bruce Cockburn and John Mayer.

On the eve of the CD’s release, Amero shared his top five all-time favourite love songs with The Uniter.

Water Runs Dry
Boyz II Men
(From II, 1994)

Water Runs Dry was the fourth single from the sophomore album by this trio of R&B crooners. Amero still knows all the words.

“I was a huge Boyz II Men fan,” he said. “This is one of those songs that’s stuck with me. It was one of those songs that made me realize that girls were pretty.”

Try
Blue Rodeo
(From Outskirts, 1987)

Try was the single that made these Canadian country-rockers famous. For Amero, who covers the song at his shows, the song is about a quarrel between two lovers.

“In the opening line, they sing ‘Don’t tell me I’m wrong, I’ve been watching every move you make,’” he explained. “He’s trying to win her over and he’s just watching and falling in love with her throughout the song.”

“ Relationship songs make the industry work.

Don Amero, musician

Secret Garden
Bruce Springsteen
(From Jerry Maguire: Music From the Motion Picture, 1997)

While this hit by The Boss is over a decade old, Amero said he’s been listening to it a lot lately. He heard it after a recent quarrel between him and his wife.

“We had one of those days where we weren’t seeing eye to eye,” Amero recalled. “After I dropped her off at work and she stormed off, the song came on and made me miss her really fast. It’s one of those songs where the lyrics and everything just grabs you. A song like this that can evoke so many emotions, I think, needs to be in my top five.”

I Would Die For You
Jann Arden
(From Time For Mercy, 1993)

“This song really put a passion [for] music into me,” Amero said. “I can think back to my teenage years and the song introduced me to the idea of love and music and how the two of them can go hand in hand.”

Amero admitted to taping this Juno award winner from the radio on cassette and replaying it over and over.

“I think the sentiment of anybody standing in front of a bullet and saving another’s life to make sure the other person is safe [makes for] a beautiful song.”

Kissing You
Des’ree
(From Romeo + Juliet: Music From the Motion Picture, 1997)

While the sight of then-teen hunk Leonardo DiCaprio kissing Claire Danes choked up audiences, Amero was getting choked up from the movie’s hit song, Kissing You, by British pop singer Des’ree. He first heard the song while on a bus to Minneapolis for a dance competition.

“I got into choreography and tried to put moves to it,” he said. “But I didn’t want to do an injustice to what the song actually is by not really getting to the meat of the song. I was never that good of a choreographer that I could offer what it really deserved. Or maybe I was too young.”

Published in Volume 63, Number 21 of The Uniter (February 26, 2009)