"The Heart of the Matter" is a song recorded by American rock singer Don Henley from his third solo studio album, The End of the Innocence (1989). Written by Henley, Mike Campbell, and J. D. Souther and produced by Henley, Campbell, and Danny Kortchmar, the song was released as the album's third single, reaching No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks in early 1990. The shorter radio edit version omits the "I'm learning to live without you now, but I miss you baby" lyric and skips directly to "I've been trying to get down to the heart of the matter".