Superb melody and oddness in a pop song.

Exercise for you: Sit down right now, and to one your favorite melodies, write new lyrics about something with a very clear story - like how you and a friend came to be friends.

I bet most of your lines won't have much basic coherence to them, much less irony, pathos, poetic use of speech rhythm, etc. Mine won't either.

Julian Casablancas never seems to exude it, but his lyrics are regularly outstanding: They appear plain only if you ignore how jumbled and stupid most lyrics, like ours from the exercise, start out. He makes an art of culling tricky ideas into laconic phrases.

Here he is describing memories most people have:

"Running in the parking lot I'm four years old
I am lost, those were the days
The soft murmur of voices in the other room
Comforting you as you fall asleep"

Cleanly, competently written - all while intentionally understating the longing he feels to have these days back again.

Here is another plain line I love:

"I am ashamed I think maybe sometimes
I might have used tricks to make you like me more"

That may not seem overly showy - it's not as ostentatious as a Shakespeare sonnet - but it's awful hard to write that straightforward and have it fit a melody well.

Give it a listen, bob your head, sing along.