Songfacts®:

• A track from Winger's debut album, this song was written by lead singer Kip Winger in the studio after a day of recording. Winger, who studied classical composition, wrote it in the Lydian scale, which is an intricate method of writing. The keyboard bits, which have an orchestral feel, are the basis of the song.
  
  In our interview with Winger, he explained: "I wrote the riff and we jammed on it a little bit, and it was just one of those things that happened magically. You'll talk to many people who think the best ideas happen by accident, and that was definitely one of them. A lot of times I'll sit down and the s--t will just drop into my hands and I don't even think about it. That was one of those songs."
• Lyrics are the last thing added to a Winger song, and like most of their tracks, this one involves a girl. It finds Kip Winger warning a girl that he's going to move on, since she's become distant in the relationship. The key line in the song is "Don't you think I feel the pain?", which Winger came up with after thinking about what he would say in that situation. He usually frames the words around the melody, but put that line in even though it didn't really fit the music.
• Kip Winger cites this as the definitive Winger song. "Headed for a Heartbreak' for me exemplifies the band the most because of the way Rod [Morgenstein] drums and Reb's [Beach] solo," he told us. "It's in Lydian and it's more out in the zone of where we all come from."