There was a lady who wrote a Depeche Mode concert review in one of our local papers a few years ago. Among the things she complained about was how, when they were singing the song "Everything Counts," she thought Dave Gahan was singing "Grabbing hands, grapple with clams" until she later realized he was singing "Grabbing hands, grab all they can."
Though, there was always one lyric which confused me. A friend and I were driving somewhere one day when the Everclear song "I Will Buy You a New Life" came on the radio. We weren't sure what he was singing at one point. My friend thought he was singing, "I know all about that other guy, the handsome man with athletic thighs."
I thought that sounded like a dumb thing to say (especially to the girl you want back so bad). So, I thought maybe he was saying, "I know all about that other guy, the handsome man with apathetic lies." That made more sense to me since it would seem like he wanted to put down the other guy. Funny enough, when I looked the lyric up, it apparently is "athletic thighs." Go figure!
.....Kelly
(P.S. - Yes, I know it's dumb, but when I was younger, I too thought it was "Secret Asian Man" until one day the real word just clicked in my head!)