The U2 song containing the lyric "a freeway like a river cuts through this land" is "Heartland."
"Heartland" appears on U2’s 1987 album "The Joshua Tree," although the song had been developing during the band’s earlier recording sessions. Its lyrics use broad American images—freeways, deserts, valleys, Death Valley, and steel towers—to create a sweeping portrait of the United States.
The song is less overtly political than several other tracks on the album, including "Bullet the Blue Sky" and "Mothers of the Disappeared." Instead, "Heartland" focuses on landscape, movement, memory, and the tension between beauty and damage in the American interior.
The lyric is sometimes misremembered as belonging to another U2 song because the band frequently uses river, road, rain, and desert imagery. The exact line is in the second half of "Heartland," where the freeway is compared with a river cutting across the land. The song’s title is also repeated throughout the chorus, making it the canonical answer.