"Headed for a Heartbreak" is a single by American

glam metal Glam metal (also known as hair metal or pop metal) is a subgenre of heavy metal that features pop-influenced hooks and guitar riffs, upbeat rock anthems, and slow power ballads. It borrows heavily from the fashion and image of 1970s glam r ...

band Winger, from their self-titled debut album '' Winger''. Released in May 1989, the

power ballad A sentimental ballad is an emotional style of music that often deals with romantic and intimate relationships, and to a lesser extent, loneliness, death, war, drug abuse, politics and religion, usually in a poignant but solemn manner.J. M. C ...

reached #19 on the US Hot 100 and #8 on the US Mainstream Rock chart. The B-side to the single was "State of Emergency". The music video for "Headed for a Heartbreak" was directed by Mark Rezyka and edited by Scott C. Wilson.

Background

Singer Kip Winger was fooling around with his keyboard at the end of a day in the studio, and came up with the riff, which is in D

Lydian mode The modern Lydian mode is a seven-tone musical scale formed from a rising pattern of pitches comprising three whole tones, a semitone, two more whole tones, and a final semitone. : Because of the importance of the major scale in modern music ...

. He jammed on the riff a little bit, and "it was just one of those things that happened magically. ... A lot of times I'll sit down and the shit will just drop into my hands and I don't even think about it. That was one of those songs." He added, "Once I figured out what I had, I rotated the bass notes around the common tones of the right hand on the keyboard stuff, so there was some music theory at play in that song, at the end of it. But basically the riff just fell onto me by accident." Winger said that for him, the song "exemplifies the band the most because of the way Rod drums and Reb's solo. It's in Lydian and it's more out in the zone of where we all come from."

Charts

References

Winger (band) songs 1989 singles Glam metal ballads Song recordings produced by Beau Hill Songs written by Kip Winger 1988 songs Atlantic Records singles 1980s ballads {{metal-song-stub