Quote:
Originally Posted by languagehacker
Hello again, and thank you. 
From the analysis that I've gathered, this is the story of a young woman who leaves her hometown of Fukuoka to become a singer in Tokyo. So around how old would she be? Could 真っ赤な嘘 then be possible?
If 赤いものに替えて means something like rage, then what does 短い嘘を繋げ赤いものに替えて疎外されていく本音を伏 せた become in English? Who was lying and who got mad?
After he kneeled and begged her to stay, would it make sense to get up and attack her verbally? It seems counterproductive. |
Howdy! I originally was going to sit this one out but since no one was replying, I came in (not knowing you would be asking new questins
).
When I stated "That would be something a teenager would say.", I was referring to the person from whom you had heard that 赤いもの meant 真っ赤な嘘, not Shiina herself. Though Wiki does not say exactly when she went to Tokyo, I am assuming around 19 - 20. I just do not think that 真っ赤な嘘 is possible
at all. It already says 短い嘘 and adding a phrase that means 真っ赤な嘘 makes it wordy, wouldn't you think? If anything, Shiina is a minimalist. She uses too few words to say what she wants to say, not the reverse.
It is the guy who lied and it is the narrator who was raged (if my understanding of 赤いもの is correct). My non-poet translation of 短い嘘を繋げ赤いものに替えて疎外されていく本音を伏 せた would along the lines of "By turning short lies into the big red, he turned down his alienated intentions." I know it sounds aweful but so does the original. The whole song consists of these surreal lines.
Shiina moves around freely in time and space. Do not take everythimng she says as if she said it in prose. It is not that he got up from his 土下座 and started verbaly attacking. Shiina, I think, is just trying to say that he used both tactics in his relationship with her. She is saying he always contradicted himself.