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What is the function of から in the beginning of the song by 浅川マキ?

夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るから

夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るのよ

3 Answers 3

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Here are the original lyrics:

夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るから
切符を用意してちょうだい
私のために一枚でいいからさ
今夜でこの街とはさよならね
わりといい街だったけどね

The から in the first line simply means "because", and the first line works as the reason for the second line. "Because I will ride the first train when dawn breaks, please arrange a ticket (for me)." or "I will ride the first train when dawn breaks, so please arrange a ticket (for me)."

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It means because, but to the reason that is pointed out by the "because" is not written in this sentence. Probably was mentioned in the previous sentence.

A:どうしてそんなに早く寝にいくの?
B:夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るから

A:Why you go to sleep so early?
B:Because I ride the earliest train in the morning.

Note that から can also be used to mean from or after/and then but when this kind is used after a verb, it must be in its て form.

乗ってから・・・

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    Unfortunately there is no previous sentence - this is the first line of the song, and the following line does not make it any easier: 夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るから 夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るのよ
    – user1602
    May 22, 2017 at 0:55
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    @user1602 oh... a song, then I wouldn't pay too much attention to the grammar. Good grammar is constantly butchered in favor of a good rhyme/beat as I am sure you have noticed more then one in your own language. Feels like the lyrics are saying, "I ride the earliest train because I ride the earliest train." Probably shouldn't over think this too much. Of course, I could always be wrong... May 22, 2017 at 1:01
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    @user1602: 日本語が分かると思いますので日本語でコメントします。Chocolateさんの私の回答に対するコメントで気づきました。Nutkinさんの最初の質問に対してuser1602さんが元の質問を編集したときに歌詞の2行目を追加したために、いろいろな回答者が質問を見る時点ごとにいわゆる「設問」が異なりましたので混乱が生じたようです。現時点で最も混乱しているのは質問者のNutkinさんでしょうね。また、真摯に回答したstack readerさんは大正解だったのに余り報われなかったのではないかと気の毒に思っております。いずれにせよ、お陰さまで私はこのような高度な文章の構築法が日本語の用法の中にあることが分かり大変勉強になりました。ありがとうございました。
    – user20624
    May 23, 2017 at 1:52
  • @mackygoo 別にこういったことはしょっちゅういつも起きてる。気にする必要ない。 May 23, 2017 at 11:09
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Here are the original lyrics:

【セリフ】 narrated

(1) 夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るから
(2) 夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るのよ

(3) 夜が明けたら 夜が明けたら

【歌】sung
(4) 夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るから
(5) 切符を用意してちょうだい
(6) 私のために一枚でいいからさ
(7) 今夜でこの街とはさよならね
(8) わりといい街だったけどね

The questioner showed only lines (1) and (2) of the lyrics, and asked us the meaning of から in line (1).
Now we know the answer is line (5), which is the reason of から in line (1).

How do you guess line (5) by the hint of lines (1) and (2)?
It's a very difficult problem.

I think naruto's answer is correct, but stack reader's answer is more than that.

Let's consider the structure of the lyrics.
I think the normal order of these sentences/lines are as:

(3) 夜が明けたら 夜が明けたら
(2) 夜が明けたら(私は)一番早い汽車に乗るのよ

(1) 夜が明けたら(私は)一番早い汽車に乗るから
(4) 夜が明けたら(私は)一番早い汽車に乗るから
(5) 切符を用意してちょうだい

Lines (3) and (2) make one sentence which expresses the strong will of me.
Lines (1) , (4) and (5) make another sentence which tells someone else the reason why I need a ticket for the train.

There is the art of speaking or writing in a way that is likely to persuade or influence people, which is called rhetoric. Hyperbaton and anastrophe are typical terms of rhetoric and they would alter or invert the syntactic order of the words in a sentence or separate normally-associated words in order to emphasize or make effect in a much greater degree. Usually the rhetoric is done in a sentence, but in these lyrics it is done between sentences, which, I think, is a very high technique of rhetoric. The reason it could achieve this high technique is that the same phrase as line (4) is placed at line (1) just like laying an underplot there.

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  • The questioner showed only the line (1) and (2) of the lyrics, and asked us the meaning of から in the line (1). いえ、質問は最初、こうでした: japanese.stackexchange.com/revisions/47636/1 2nd revisionで「夜が明けたら一番早い汽車に乗るのよ 」の行をつけ足したのは、質問者ではない他のユーザーさんです。
    – chocolate
    May 22, 2017 at 16:51
  • @Chocolate: 日本語が分かると思いますので日本語でコメントします。【意見1】質問の最初の版は理解しました。【意見2】質問の趣旨を大きく変える第2版への編集が少なくとも私の混乱の原因ですね。【意見3】個々の版への回答は皆さんよくできていると思います。【意見4】私は第2版を見ての回答ですが、大変難しい質問だと判断し、narutoさんの回答を参考に歌詞の原点を調べますと、narutoさんの調査した歌詞の前にさらに「セリフ」があり、そこの冒頭の2行からの引用を質問に用いていると判断しました。私が対象とした質問は私の回答を見れば明瞭です。【意見5】質問者の「から」の意味はすでにnarutoさんとstack readerさんが回答していますので、私は、歌詞の1行目の用法を修辞法の観点から回答を試みたものです。 いずれにせよ、ご指摘ありがとうございます。
    – user20624
    May 22, 2017 at 23:58
  • @Chocolate: 「歌詞の原点」と書いた部分は「歌詞の原典」の誤りです。失礼しました。
    – user20624
    May 23, 2017 at 4:04

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