Can someone please help me with these lyric translations?

Question

Hello :) I'm trying to translate a song for a personal project, but a few of the lyrics were a bit too poetic/advanced for me to understand. This is what I've come up with, but if someone could please help me with it I'd be very grateful!

どうして街はまた ずかずかと笑顔取り戻せるのか

"How can this town keep restoring their own smiling faces by themselves?"

^^or something to that effect.

I haven't heard ずかずかと used before... But is it synonymous with かってに? That's what I assumed. (I also tried substituting it with ずけずけと but I got confused again ;;)

遠吠えにしたって　最後には笑えるよう願って吠えてる

"I howled and I barked hoping I could laugh in the end"

Would you put "I howled and I barked" together despite 遠吠えにしたって being at the beginning of the phrase and 吠えてる at the end.?

轍と共にある今に指輪をはめてあげましょう

All I've got is... "Let me put a ring on you now with a rut" but I'm very sure it must mean something else ><

The full lyrics can be found here if you need them to better understand.

Thank you for your help !!

Answer 1

どうして街はまた ずかずかと笑顔取り戻せるのか

ずかずか is the same as ずけずけ, a negative adverb that describes someone's carefree, blunt, inconsiderate or overly-familiar attitude. In this context, he is irritated by town people because they seem happy while he is sad.

遠吠えにしたって　最後には笑えるよう願って吠えてる

～にしたって is the same as ～にしても, a way of emphatically picking up something among similar things. "Even for ～" or "Even when ～ is concerned". For example 冗談にしたって失礼だ means "It's rude even as a joke." In general 遠吠え is not necessarily a sad thing, but in this context I think this 遠吠え represents his sadness.

→ "Even when I bark (in sorrow), I'm doing so hoping I can laugh in the end."

轍と共にある今に指輪をはめてあげましょう

He is trying to put a ring on 今 itself, not "you". Remember this is a breakup song; he has just lost someone to present a ring to! Basically the underlying context around this line is "For now, I want to deeply feel my sorrow, so that I will not forget it in the future". So I think this line is saying he wants to mark this present time as an important, memorable one. Maybe he's hoping his memory will turn into a good memory in the future, "little by little". 轍と共にある modifies 今 ("this moment with a rut"). I guess this 轍 is a metaphor for his past.

Answer 2

Thank you for posting your attempts!

These are some hard sentences to make sense of. A few users on this site might be able to answer with more precision than myself, but I'll answer with some dissection and maybe this will help come to a better conclusion. The big problem with lyrics is that, because they are meant to be poetic, sometimes they don't make all the sense in the world, and are up to interpretation, so at best you're getting my personal interpretation now.

With that being said, here's my attempt:

どうして街はまた ずかずかと笑顔取り戻せるのか
How might this town take back its barging in and its laughter again?

ずかずか is an onomatopoeia that typically is used in a rude, stormy, barging in sort of entrance. Also, 取り戻せる is in the potential form, which leads me to believe the どうして at the start of the sentence is asking not why but how.

遠吠えにしたって　最後には笑えるよう願って吠えてる
I howled as though I was howling while wishing that I am able to laugh in the end.

This is a bit tricky even for me. It almost feels redundant a bit to say it like this, since 遠吠えする is 'to howl' but with the って (taken as a short ということ) as 遠吠えにしたということ, I get the sense of wanting to explain what the howl means, then it gets explained in the next part. 願って吠えてる is a compound verb 'howling and wishing', but 'wishing' is getting modified by 最後に笑えるよう, meaning something along the lines of "so that I am able to laugh in the end".

轍と共にある今に指輪をはめてあげましょう
I'll put a ring on you that is inscribed with this moment.

The part that's complicated here is the part that comes before the に in this sentence. So, breaking this up a bit:

• 轍と共にある今に

"This moment with the rut/furrow/groove/incision/etc." I find that 轍 is an interesting word in that the words for it in English can always mean something else. 轍 is referring to the track left behind by the passing of a wheel, or the furrow or groove made by a plow or something like that. Therefore, it can also be taken to mean an inscription, a plowing, some sort of incision onto the earth or other material, etc. 轍と共にある all modifies 今 which is "This moment" or "Now", and since it is being modified it is taken as a noun.

• 指輪をはめてあげましょう

This is easier. "I want to put a ring on you". This could mean wanting to marry the person, or, else, entrap the person as if a ring were put on the whole of the person.

Hope this helps! The users who know better will probably tear my answer to shreds, though.