GUMI- Lemonade

[Eggplant and Tuna]

Hello! This is my first post on this forum, please treat me well orz

Anyways I'm stuck on these lines from a less popular GUMI song called ラムネード:

四角い餅菓子の青りんご
悲しいまでに　遠くを見つめてる

I've come up with:

The green apples of the square bean-jam cakes
By the time I stared into the distance sadly.

Which makes no sense. Can anyone think of a better way to translate this?

[EJTranslations]

Hmm, that's a tough one. I would translate "悲しいまでに　遠くを見つめてる" as something like "[I am] gazing into the distance until I become/it makes me sad" (ugh, that's clunky, but you get the idea). "Xまでに" is more "until X [happens]" than "by the time X [happens]," and 悲しい isn't modifying 見つめてる here (it would have to be in adverbial form for that anyway, which it's not).

However, I have no idea how that relates to the bean-jam cakes and apples. What's the larger context?

[Raichu]

The lyrics are right under our nose.

Actually I think までに with respect to time is usually "by the time/before [something]", e.g.,

夕方までに作業を終える / finish one's work by evening

I looked it up, however, and the meaning is broader, not just limited to time, but expresses a limit with respect to time, space, effects, degree, action etc. of anything.

全く新しいレベルまでに高められる / be raised to a whole new level
種々の～を含むまでに拡大される / be extended to include a number of

(Examples from alc.co.jp.)

The unusual thing about this line though is the present tense 見つめてる rather than the imperfect tense 見つめる. I think maybe it means "to the extent in time that I'm sad, I'm gazing into the distance" = "while I'm sad, I'm [now] gazing into the distance", implying that you stop gazing when you're no longer sad.

To say "I gaze until I become sad [in the future]" as you suggested, I would say 悲しくなるまでに見つめる, implying that you stop gazing after you've become sad.

I'm not confident though. It's the first time I've ever encountered までに followed by present progressive -ている.

[Eggplant and Tuna]

I think I'm going to translate 悲しいまでに　遠くを見つめてる as "While I'm sad, I'm gazing into the distance." Thanks for the help guys! Now to figure out the whole green apple deal...

[EJTranslations]

Wow, I am an idiot. This is what I get for commenting when I'm in a rush, I guess.

Anyway, looking at the full lyrics, I don't think the lines about food are grammatically connected to the other lines, exactly? They seem just sort of interspersed as one-line metaphorical descriptions of feelings (I'm guessing).