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Can I ask a favour?

I am trying to catch on the meaning of the song 涙をとどけて. I have caught everything except for the following 4 lines, which remain vague for me.

涙をとどけて 本当のこと

想いをとどけて 言えないこと

言葉にできない

明日をとどけて

思いが届く means "hopes get realized".

涙をとどける means "to excite tears".

涙をとどけて 本当のこと means "truth causes tears"? Am I right?

明日をとどけて means "tommorow will come" (???)

What does the -て form mean in this context?

I can't manage. Can you help?

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The intransitive verb 届く (to reach) and the transitive verb 届ける (to convey, to deliver) are usually used with tangible objects such as letters. But it's also frequently used with words representing feelings.

  • 感謝の気持ちを届ける convey the feelings of gratitude

  • 君に届け Let (It) Reach You

The second example is the title of a manga, and people can easily guess that this title actually means "let my love reach you" or something.

Now, 涙を届けて (literally "please deliver tears") is not an established idiomatic phrase. Obviously it's a metaphor, and the actual meaning could be ambiguous. It probably means something like "please notice/feel my sorrow". Those て-form verbs express requests. The following 本当のこと (truth) is grammatically not strongly connected with 涙を届けて, so it would be enough to interpret it as "that (my sorrow) is the truth".

想いを届けて 言えないこと / 言葉にできない (literally "please deliver my feelings, something that can't be said, can't be worded"): So he wants to share his feelings with someone, but he has difficulty in doing so.

明日を届けて (literally "please deliver a tomorrow") is even more ambiguous and poetic, but under this context I think it means "give me a tomorrow" or "may tomorrow come".

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  • Thank you very much! Your explanations are very clear. It turns out 涙をとどけて 本当のこと Please, behold my sorrow. It’s not a fake. 明日をとどけて Give me the hope for tomorrow. Yet I do not completely understand the following. 想いを届けて "please deliver my feelings" means "please, deliver my feelings to you"? Can also the following meaning be correct? "Please, deliver your feelings to me", or in other words "Discover your feelings to me"? Then 涙をとどけて could also mean "deliver your tears to me" or "share your sorrow with me". Am I wrong? Not sure whether my alternative fits the previous context.
    – Tabibito
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 10:08
  • "To whom" is not specified, but I feel this 想いを届けて means "deliver my feelings to someone" because he is singing about loneliness and meaninglessness of his life. Maybe he is just saying this to no one in particular.
    – naruto
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 14:59
  • Omake: One that was hard for me to wrap my head around was when it's used as a none. 転居届け for example: a form one turns into the post office when one moves. Took me a long time to not have "reach" jump in my head.
    – kiss-o-matic
    Commented Mar 11, 2015 at 15:19

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