In the song "Drag Queen" Julian sings "Coast to coast, L.A. to Chicago, I don't know geography all that well."
It always struck me as odd that Julian landed on a silly joke-lyric for one of the more epic song climaxes in The Strokes' discography.
Well, today I discovered some additional context to that lyric.
I was shopping for glasses at LensCrafters while the adult contemporary radio classic "Smooth Operator" by Sade was playing in the store. I happened to catch THE VERY SAME LYRIC in that song! I went home to verify and sure enough at 1:35 Sade sings "coast to coast L.A. to Chicago."
If you're looking for meaning behind the lyric, I can't help you. But I'm particularly tickled by the fact that Julian was probably haunted by the fact that Sade didn't know geography all that well and decided to reference it at an otherwise incredibly serious musical moment within his own song.