For the Hope of It All: Summer, Ownership, and Memory in “august”
Hey, what month is it?
When Taylor Swift wrote folklore, she created three characters and put them in a fictional love triangle to play out over the course of three songs: “august,” “betty,” and “cardigan.” Each song tells the same story from a different character’s perspective as James has a summer fling with the “august” speaker but ultimately ends up with Betty. As such, Swift used “august” as an exercise in storytelling, but also imbued the track with a specific feeling and captured the essence of summer in August.1 Throughout the song, the speaker reflects on her brief relationship with James and how much it impacted her.
It’s a Need
Swift begins the song by painting a picture for the listener: “Salt air, and the rust on your door / I never needed anything more.” These fragments of summertime memory bring the past to life in appealing to all the senses—the taste and smell of saltwater, the image and feeling of the old door, and the sounds of the ocean and creaking hinges. “Salt air” suggests both an oceanside environment and the feeling of sweat, establishing a specific but universal setting from the start. The “rust” could be a result of this climate, but Swift also uses the rusty door to allude to decay as a symbol of the failed relationship.2
By asserting that she “never needed anything more,” the speaker acknowledges the addictive quality of love or infatuation—that this was the most intensely she had ever “needed anything.” At the same time, the line has a different meaning when “anything more” is interpreted as the whole noun phrase: the speaker is trying to convince herself that these fragments of a relationship were all that she “needed” from James. The following lines present glimpses of their emotional and physical intimacy: “Whispers of ‘Are you sure?’ / ‘Never have I ever before.’” This dialogue demonstrates both nervousness and trust, with the “‘Never have I ever’” game being another nod to their youth. Notably, we don’t know whether it’s the speaker or James saying either of these things, so we’re left with the speaker’s bias in terms of storytelling and characterization (at least in this song).
Summer Nights
In the chorus, the speaker reveals that whatever relationship she and James had is in the past: “But I can see us lost in the memory / August slipped away into a moment in time / ‘Cause it was never mine.” She’s looking back and getting “lost in the memory” of their summer fling, but the relationship is also “lost” in their memories and doomed to exist only there. Despite her efforts to hold on to the relationship, it “slipped away,” turning the present into a “moment in time” that they look back on. The whole month stands in for the hope of a longer relationship with James as the speaker realizes that it didn’t stand a chance beyond the summer: “I can see us twisted in bedsheets / August sipped away like a bottle of wine / ‘Cause you were never mine.” Swift uses another summer image—having just sheets on the bed—as a reminder of the sexual aspect of the relationship and the fact that James treated it as a casual fling.3
In a clever switch from “slipped” to “sipped,” Swift compares infatuation to alcohol in its tendency to keep the speaker coming back for more.4 She fell for James without realizing how it would affect her; small, inconsequential sips from a “bottle of wine” might quickly lead to the whole bottle being gone. In this manner, a sequence of small moments between these two characters suddenly led to a connection that held great significance for the speaker. Nevertheless, she sees that it was fairly one-sided, skipping the metaphor and saying “you were never mine” this time. As listeners, we also find out later on the album, in “betty,” that this is true: “Slept next to her, but / I dreamt of you all summer long.” Even when they were together, James was thinking about Betty instead.
Holding On to Nothing
In the second verse, the speaker recounts how her worries about James began during the summer: “Your back beneath the sun / Wishin’ I could write my name on it / Will you call when you’re back at school? / I remember thinkin’ I had you.” She starts out by taking the listener back to August, with a specific reference to James’ appearance. This whole song centers on the feeling of attraction as ownership and the loss thereof, so her admission that she wants to “write [her] name on it” demonstrates a desire to claim James as hers. Even in the moment, however, it’s an unactualized wish. Notably, the speaker’s is the only name from the love triangle that is not mentioned in the three songs—she never got to write her name on anything.5 Swift’s mention of “school” is another reminder of the characters’ youth, and the use of “you’re” rather than “we’re” indicates that they don’t go to the same school, creating further distance between James and the speaker. Her wondering if James will call reveals that she was already uncertain about the future of their relationship before it ended.
Lyrically, the second chorus repeats the material from the first, but there is a stark difference in production. This iteration is much more stripped back, with just muted pads of sound instead of the guitar, and soft heartbeat sounds. Moreover, the chord progression goes from F, A#, Gm in the first chorus to Dm7, A#, Gm in the second. By adding a D root to the F major, Swift changes the chord from a major triad to a minor 7th but keeps the melody the same. This subtle but unsettling shift, coupled with the ambiguous sonic landscape of this chorus, reflects the speaker’s feelings of melancholy amidst her happy memories.
Enough?
The speaker reflects more deeply on her feelings about the relationship in the bridge: “Back when we were still changin’ for the better / Wanting was enough.” The phrase “[b]ack when” suggests that quite some time has passed since the end of the summer, again demonstrating the lasting effect of these feelings. The notion of “changin’ for the better” could refer to the characters either individually, with regard to their youth and ability to learn from mistakes, or as a pair—perhaps they were friends before the nature of their relationship changed. In any case, at the time, the speaker found enough fulfillment in craving or “[w]anting” romance and the potential for good things to possibly happen. At the same time, this could also just be how she’s justifying her feelings in retrospect.
The speaker then qualifies and expands upon this sentiment: “For me, it was enough / To live for the hope of it all / Cancel plans just in case you’d call / And say, ‘Meet me behind the mall.’” She knows that it wasn’t “enough” for James, who ultimately sought out a relationship with Betty instead, but she still held onto these hopeless romantic ideals. In this context, the phrase “live for” is sadly illuminating; this doomed relationship was what the speaker was looking forward to and what kept her going. It’s easier to stay in denial when you’re only dealing with “hope”—once you actually confront those feelings or the circumstances of reality, you have to face decisions and disappointment (in this case, when the summer is over). The speaker sacrificing her other “plans” and relationships for the chance at spending time with James could be deemed early crush behavior, but it also highlights an unhealthy level of dependence. The implication that meeting “‘behind the mall’” might characterize this as a secret teenage relationship explains some of the speaker’s eager excitement. Nevertheless, as Swift explores in “illicit affairs,” these situations rarely end well.
Do You Remember?
The final lyrics of the bridge encapsulate the speaker’s inner turmoil regarding the dissolution of the relationship: “So much for summer love and saying ‘us’ / ‘Cause you weren’t mine to lose.” She thought of it as “love,” a whirlwind romance, and perhaps James told her the same. The speaker realizes that they won’t be referring to themselves as “‘us’” anymore since they’re not together. Swift further explores how terminology can be indicative of changes in relationships in “champagne problems”: “How evergreen, our group of friends / Don’t think we’ll say that word again.” In this evermore song, she does not specify which word “that word” refers to, but in most cases, life changes necessitate vocabulary changes that might not catch up right away. Part of this change is, again, a loss of ownership. There is a key difference between “never mine” and “weren’t mine to lose”: the speaker suggests that she hasn’t even experienced a loss since she never had James in the first place. If they were never officially together, even if she experienced it like a breakup, she feels she doesn’t deserve to mourn it as such. In an extreme attempt at a defense mechanism, the speaker completely invalidates the feelings of heartbreak that she’s expressed throughout this song.
At the end of the next chorus, Swift repeats the “never mine” lyric to comply with the speaker’s strategy. Still, every system is flawed, and the walls the speaker has put up come down when the song circles back to its other core tenet—memory: “But do you remember? / Remember when I pulled up and said, ‘Get in the car’ / And then canceled my plans just in case you’d call? / Back when I was livin’ for the hope of it all, for the hope of it all / ‘Meet me behind the mall.’” The only other person who was there and can fully validate her experience is James. These questions serve as reminders for the speaker’s own sanity and show James that their relationship was a big deal to her. The “‘Get in the car’” lyric is directly paralleled in “betty” as the beginning of their fling: “She said, ‘James, get in, let’s drive.’”
The other lyrics in this outro are repeated from the bridge; she asks if James remembers but, in effect, she’s also asking the listener. These words become a memory for us as well when we hear them earlier in the song. The direct echo of “for the hope of it all” further emphasizes the speaker’s desperation and her need to convince the listener (and James) to understand and remember her experience. Swift’s fragmentation and repetition of recycled lyrics in this outro illustrates how the same memories become fragmented as they play on an endless loop in the speaker’s mind. Finally, the song concludes with an instrumental fade-out as it effectively “slip[s] away” from the listener’s awareness. With the changing of the seasons, James forgets about the speaker, leaving her destined to relive her memories alone and remain “August girl” forever.
Over the past few years, "august" has had its own version of the Christmas song effect, announcing and ushering in the beginning of the month.
She has used similar images in subsequently released songs: “rust that grew between telephones” in “Maroon” and “rusting my sparkling summer” in “The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived.”
This is confirmed again in “betty”: “would you trust me / If I told you it was just a summer thing?”
Fun fact: I didn’t know this was the lyric for at least a year after this song came out.
Swift refers to her as "Augusta" or "Augustine" in Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, but she is more often simply called "August girl."