Thanks for the context perth. I was too lazy to search it. I know I've heard this song many times, but confess I never really focused on the lyrics.
This is what I get:
American culture- seductive, powerful, and destructive. The red faced man, I imagine the powerful, gambling corporate cat-, and he approaches (from U2s perspective not in the US), instigates, wheeling and dealing. buying and selling. The fighter planes and mud huts arent necessarily in the later mentioned American city- but they are causally related to the man and his cash.
"Through the alleys"-It shifts from happening to "me" to "you", so I imagine a different, contrasting scene- this one definitely set in America. The lone sax line is important and relates to the individual- there are all the links to American music, free expression, with in the quiet groaning American city. Groaning not from the bombs, they're elsewhere, but like a big moving machine groans.
And if you wanna analyze Spinal Tap, I'd suggest the more mature work, "Big Bottom" or "Sex Farm", for they are rife with meaning
