CTU2fan said:
"Bono is trying to be American/Bono is in love with America/Bono is stealing American music/I thought U2 were British?"
One of my favorite things about Heartland is that, while it is shamelessly Americana-inspired, it sounds like little of anything associated with the Delta region. U2 definitely took an American iconic image and tracked a sound for it from their own palette, as decidedly un-American as it is.
Still, I can hardly think of any music that better suggests the images of the Delta that are stuck in my mind. Adam's intro bass line pulses like barge engines in the distance, and then eddies mysteriously but powerfully like the wild river itself that many of us grew up hearing horror stories about and occasionally witnessed firsthand, a place to be avoided at all costs... Edge's lonely single-note echoes conjure up the stark emptiness of the expansive, table-flat fields, where the farmers live miles apart and annually test the odds of rich harvest vs. flood-swept loss, and where strange, exotic animals bury up in remote thickets where they go undetected for decades... Edge's gorgeous background vocals swirl like the wind that usually picks up speed across those denuded fields and elevated dirt roads... and Bono's vocals yearn with an urgency and exasperation that speak for a forgotten land that, save for some far-removed corporate agriculture interests, is essentially third-world in terms of economics, education, health care, and opportunity.
I'm biased, but I feel that Heartland is a monumental achievement and a career top-12 song for U2. I also think that it would be virtually impossible to replicate it live vocally with any confidence, along the lines of Red Hill Mining Town. A lot of water under the bridge since those vocal tracks were put down.
land 
They bashed R&H! That was a great album!! 
