Don Henley has long struck me as rather a horrible person, dour and self-important and (it would seem) a real pain in the butt to work with. A few years ago, I read a book about The Eagles, the band that delivered him to stardom, and he did not come off well at all in that volume. (Although, to be fair, his bandmate Glenn Frey didn’t either; he and Henley are polar opposites in many ways, but they apparently both orbit a common center of asshole-ishness.)

And yet in spite of his perceived shortcomings as a human being, I enjoy quite a lot of his work, both with The Eagles and his solo efforts. He’s got a knack for creating memorable phrases as well as an insightful eye for the ways that life beats you down. Yes, his music is often pretty melancholy, if not downright sad… but it also frequently feels just plain true.

This week’s Friday Evening Video is a song from his third solo album, The End of the Innocence, which came out in 1989… yes, the same landmark year when I got rained out of a Steve Miller concert and discovered Bonnie Raitt. What can I say? It was a memorable twelve months… for a lot of reasons.

“The Heart of the Matter” was the third single from The End of the Innocence. It came out in early 1990 and made it to number 21 on the Billboard chart, which means I heard it a lot during that winter and spring. And it broke my heart a little bit more every time I did, too. It’s possibly the best track on the album… and it’s the one I always used to skip, because I just couldn’t take hearing it. It cut a little too close to the bone, you see, and after several middle-of-the-night spins of that album when I ended up sitting in the dark with a metaphorical knife sticking out of my chest, I decided it was better for me to simply avoid that one. Quite honestly, I didn’t think about this tune for years.

Just lately, though, it’s been on my mind again. I’ve realized it’s finally time to let go of some things I’ve been carrying around for far too long. I finally can let go of them, and I think it’s possible I already have without even realizing it. Now when I hear “The Heart of the Matter,” it still resonates for me… but the frequency has changed. The verses that I used to not want to hear are now the ones that make the most sense to me.  Make of that what you will; it’s probably doesn’t mean anything to anyone but myself.

So let’s play the damn song, shall we? As far as I can determine, there isn’t a music video for it per se, but I did find this lovely performance of it from Farm Aid IV, a benefit concert held on April 7, 1990… probably just about the time I was deciding I never wanted to hear this song again. Well, tonight I not only want to hear it, I think maybe I kind of need to…

Hope you all enjoy it, and have a good weekend.