The Manuscript

“‘August’ was obviously about the girl that James had this summer with, right? So she seems like she’s a bad girl, but really, she’s not a bad girl. She’s like, really, a sensitive person who really fell for him, and she was trying to seem cool and seem like she didn’t care because that’s what girls have to do. And she was trying to let him think she didn’t care, but she really did, and she thought they had something very real, and then he goes back to Betty. So the idea that there’s some, like, some bad, villain girl in any type of situation who, like, takes your man is actually a total myth because that’s not usually the case at all. Like, everybody has feelings and wants to be seen and loved, and just, like, Augustine, that’s all she wanted was love.”
— Taylor Swift, “Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions”

Folklore was the album I had been wanting Taylor to make ever since becoming a Swiftie when I was 14.

Having been a Bruce Springsteen fan since before I was a Swiftie, and considering the two of them to be the two greatest musical storytellers of the last fifty years, I had long wanted to her to do a stripped-down, storytelling-first album in the vein of Springsteen’s Nebraska, The Ghost of Tom Joad, and Devils & Dust albums, all of which strip away uptempo production in favor of telling powerful stories via lyrics that unfold like mini-movies. Knowing Taylor’s incredible storytelling skill — and being long-annoyed by people who dismissed this skill by ignorantly saying that she “only writes about boys” or “only writes about breakups” — I was dying for her to drop an album that stripped away the pop gloss and foregrounded her talent for cinematic storytelling in a way that not even the most jaded critics could dismiss.

Three straight-up pop albums and a global pandemic later, we got Folklore, my second-favorite Taylor album behind Speak Now and an incredible work of art and storytelling that surpassed even my highest expectations for what a stripped-down, storytelling-first Taylor album could look like.

Even more amazing than her musical and storytelling skill on Folklore is the fact that it was equally embraced by Swifties and critics alike. Besides the completely well-deserved critical acclaim and ultimate Album of the Year Grammy win (her third following Fearless and 1989), the entire Swiftie community, including those who jumped on board post-1989 and were mostly familiar with her pure pop songs, quickly caught on to the mode she was operating in and streamed the heck out of all of the songs. In fact, as of this writing, two of Taylor’s top ten most-streamed songs on Spotify are from Folklore: “Cardigan,” her seventh-most streamed song at over 1.37 billion streams, and the subject of today’s Manuscript entry, “August,” currently her tenth-most streamed song at over 1.18 billion streams.

Like the subject of next week’s Manuscript entry, “August” was never released as a single but was quickly embraced by Swifties as a masterpiece of music and storytelling. Setting aside the annual attention and boost in streams the song gets every time the calendar turns to the month of August (and, hence, why I’m writing and posting this entry in the month of August), the song first captured the attention and imagination of Swifties from being a part of the so-called “Teenage Love Triangle” trilogy of songs that make up the heart of Folklore. The first of these songs, the aforementioned “Cardigan,” tells the story of a girl named Betty reflecting on her relationship with a guy named James, who had cheated on her one summer with an unnamed girl. Six songs later in the Folklore track list comes “August,” which tells the story of the girl that James had a fling with (who Taylor refers to in the quote at the top of this entry as “Augustine”), and her tumultuous feelings of love and infatuation for him and how they all come crashing down once he goes back home and back to his girlfriend Betty.

And this tumultuous nature is communicated right at the beginning of “August,” as the song opens with what seems to be four seconds of guitar/synthesizer feedback reverberating like time travel before the summery acoustic guitar and Taylor’s vocals come in, firmly situating the listener in the seemingly-innocent summer that Augustine is reminiscing about. As Taylor starts singing, her lyrics paint a strong sensory image of what happened between her and James:

Salt air, and the rust on your door
I never needed anything more
Whispers of “Are you sure?”
“Never have I ever before”

That opening lyric, describing “salt air” and rust on James’ family’s door, clearly situates the listener in a beach town during the summertime. Considering the “Cardigan” lyric that mentioned the “High Line” in Manhattan sets the whole “Teenage Love Triangle” trilogy in the New York City area, one could reasonably assume that James and Augustine are spending the summer with their families in the Hamptons, where many wealthy New York City families go for the summer. Given that these New York family summer getaways many times involve opportunities for the adults to play golf or pickleball or party on the beach, it makes sense why this would have been an opportunity for the teenage James and Augustine to hook up and have a fling while their parents are off with their respective friends. The following lyric, “I never needed anything more,” only enhances this reading, as for Augustine, this fling provides an escape from the loneliness that she has no doubt felt in previous summers when her wealthy parents have ignored her in favor of their friends.

But it’s the last two lines of this first verse that really hit an emotional nerve and allow this song to have the impact it does. While it does not explicitly say it, the heavy implication of this line is that James and Augustine are about to have sex for the first time, and specifically that Augustine is a virgin and is about to lose her virginity to James. This transforms the song from being simply about a summer fling to being about an inexperienced girl giving herself away to a guy with a girlfriend who then ghosts her in favor of his girlfriend, leaving her to agonize over the abrupt end of a relationship she truly felt was special with a guy who clearly never cared for her. It turns the song into a tragedy, one that evokes similar feelings that Taylor has expressed from her own life on songs like “Dear John” and “All Too Well,” albeit minus the age gaps that defined those relationships.

The song then transitions to one of the greatest choruses Taylor has ever written, one that simply but brilliantly states the contradictions of this relationship and tumultuous mindset of Augustine reflecting on it:

But I can see us lost in the memory
August slipped away into a moment in time
‘Cause it was never mine
And I can see us twisted in bedsheets
August sipped away like a bottle of wine
‘Cause you were never mine

In the first three lines of this chorus, Augustine describes seeing her and James “lost in the memory” in the last month of their time together, while “August slipped away into a moment in time,” as the relationship ended prematurely and now solely exists as a memory that Augustine is lost in. As I write this, numerous people’s summers are ending or have ended as vacations end and schools start up again. For many, the month of August is a month of endings and the fear of endings and the return to responsibilities and the loss of innocence. I remember vividly being eleven in the summer of 2008 and dreading going back to school so much that I literally stopped watching TV because I hated seeing back-to-school commercials. These lyrics perfectly capture that feeling, as now James is back with his girlfriend while that last month of August he spent with Augustine has passed her by more quickly than she can articulate. Meanwhile, the memories themselves linger like a bottle of wine being gradually sipped, specifically the memory of her losing her virginity to James and the knowledge that he (and the relationship she had with him) were never hers to have had. The month of August may pass by quickly, but the memories will linger forever.

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

This second verse further illustrates the contradictions running through Augustine’s head as it lingers on her memories with James. The first two lines continue to place the listener in the Hamptons summer setting, with Augustine and James lying on the beach, James on his stomach getting a tan on his back while Augustine lies next to him wanting to write her name on his back, perhaps as a way to claim him as hers before they both leave the Hamptons and go back home. This continues to show an anxious attachment Augustine has to James, so desperate for him to remember her that she wants to literally write her name on his back. The last two lines, however, begin to pull the listener back a bit, showing Augustine’s self-awareness in how ultimately fruitless her hopes that their relationship would continue were. Even her question to him about whether he would even so much as call her when he was back at school seems ridiculous in retrospect, as now she knows that she never once had him.

The song then goes back to the chorus, however, this chorus sounds noticeably different than the first one. While the first chorus still foregrounded the song’s central acoustic guitar strumming and soft drumming, giving the feeling of a wistful summertime memory, the second chorus drops both of those elements out, with the reverb in Taylor’s vocals and the very “Wildest Dreams”-esque inclusion of her heartbeat noticeably standing out. Coming off of the second verse, this chorus seemingly shows a growing distance between Augustine and her memories of James, as the summery vibe of the first chorus is gone and replaced by her beating heart and memories of her August with James echoing into nowhere.

But then, as Taylor holds out Augustine’s final “mine” of the chorus and yelps it out, the summery acoustic guitar and soft drumming returns, along with buried electric guitar grooves and lush strings, bringing out how volatile these once-romantic and blissful memories are becoming to Augustine. This volatile nature is further emphasized by the typically-exquisite and painful Taylor Swift bridge that she belts out over the music:

Back when we were still changin’ for the better
Wanting was enough
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”
So much for summer love and saying “us”
‘Cause you weren’t mine to lose
You weren’t mine to lose, no

Here, Augustine is burrowing even deeper into self-reflection, realizing how young and immature they both were while carrying on this summer fling and how, for her specifically, she was way more in love with the thrill of being infatuated and the idea of a steamy romance than she ever was in love with James. “Wanting was enough…it was enough to live for the hope of it all.” The two anecdotes she mentions here (and will allude to again repeatedly before the song ends) show Augustine getting off on the thrill of being in a summer fling: in canceling plans (whether to hang out with other friends in the Hamptons or to spend time with her parents and their friends on the beach) just in case she gets a call from James, she gets to indulge herself in the feeling of infatuation and excitement of waiting for a potential phone call and lovestruck conversation. And by anticipating a secret rendezvous with James behind the mall (presumably the Bridgehampton Commons, the only mall of its kind serving the Hamptons), she is further fantasizing about the romance-movie-esque possibilities that being in a relationship like this could lead to.

But the final line of this bridge, “So much for summer love and saying ‘us’ ‘cause you weren’t mine to lose,” ranks right up there with the best and most gut-wrenching couplets in Taylor’s songbook. In this one line, Augustine seems to firmly shatter all of the illusions she had of what this relationship was, as well as every illusion she and the listener ever had about summer romances/flings. It’s notable here that she uses the phrase “summer love,” something that could allude to everything from the popular Grease song “Summer Nights” (which people frequently misname as “Summer Lovin’”) to the Justin Timberlake song “Summer Love”. But more significantly, it’s an allusion to romanticized idea of a summer fling that has been perpetuated by pop culture without taking into account the ramifications that happen once it ends. More often than not, it does not end with Danny Zuko and Sandy Olsson meeting up again at Rydell High and having an iconic teen movie romance. Rather, it ends with one person going back to their partner at home and the other being heartbroken reflecting on what could have been.

As Augustine now realizes, there was never any real “summer love” between them. There was certainly lust and longing and thrills and excitement, but there was never “love,” there was never “us,” and Augustine couldn’t even lose James because he was never hers to lose. He was always Betty’s, and all she can hope for now is for Betty to learn of James’ cheating, as only then will he face the real consequences of his betrayal of both girls. As Taylor sings in the voice of Betty on “Cardigan,” “Chase two girls, lose the one.”

But then, with exactly half the song left to go, Augustine seems to drift back into her memories once again, with another wistful reprise of the chorus backed by the prominent acoustic guitar and drumming and ending with two repeated acknowledgments of James never being hers. This is immediately followed by an extended outro that repeats almost like a mantra, an incantation, a longing for a thrill that Augustine has never had since her August with James and may never have again:

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”

While Augustine had referred to canceling her plans in case James called, “living for the hope of it all,” and James organizing a secret rendezvous behind the mall, one important detail that is solely revealed in this outro is Augustine pulling up at James’ house and commanding him to get in her car. This detail is mentioned later in “Betty” when James, the narrator of that song, corroborates this memory, and it is significant in revealing the power Augustine had in their brief relationship, that she could organize meetings between them and drive them both around in her car. In a way, remembering this now, that this relationship wasn’t a passive thing that happened to her, but rather a thrill that she was an active participant in giving herself, allows her to remember it as fun instead of a painful heartbreak.

And notably, at the end of the third repetition of these lyrics, Augustine drops the final line, “Meet me behind the mall” (a quote from James), and simply repeats that she was living “for the hope of it all” over and over until her voice drifts off and the music continues for nearly the last whole minute of the song, as Augustine’s memories of her and James fade further away and she holds on to the hope, the last true feeling from her time with him, to sustain her.

Ultimately, what the listener is left with is an incredible musical expression of empathy that defines many of the songs on both Folklore and Evermore. And it also remarks a stark contrast to Taylor’s earlier songwriting, specifically “Better Than Revenge” from Speak Now, which encompasses a point-of-view that Taylor explicitly refutes in the quote that opened this entry (and at least partially refuted in the lyric change she made to that song on Taylor’s Version). Augustine was not a villain. She ultimately knew deep down James was never hers, but she was just living for the hope of it all, for the hope of a love that never existed. Because, as Taylor said in the aforementioned quote, “all she wanted was love.”

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Like all of the other songs from Folklore, the first time anybody other than Jack Antonoff and Aaron Dessner got to see Taylor perform this song was when Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions half-documentary/half-concert film dropped on Disney+ in November 2020. And while I know this is debated, for me, the trio’s performance of “August” was the absolute highlight of the whole film; in particular, the last minute just makes me smile every time I watch it, especially Taylor’s laughing at Jack at the song’s very end. It’s an absolute delight (sorry, Jack Antonoff haters): 

But then, just a few months later, Taylor reunited with Aaron and Jack for a very memorable Folklore/Evermore medley at that year’s COVID-hindered Grammys, where she would ultimately (and deservedly) win Album of the Year for Folklore. While “August” takes up only a minute of this medley (sandwiched between “Cardigan” and “Willow”), the “August” portion fully brings out the inherent angst in the song in a way that the Long Pond performance didn’t quite, and is certainly worth watching (I still would have loved to have seen “Betty” in this mashup instead of “Willow” so the Teenage Love Triangle trilogy could have been performed together, but I digress):

And then, once the Eras Tour finally kicked off in March 2023, “August” took a permanent spot in the setlist that has not been changed as of this writing. It was at the heart of both the original Folklore era and now the new combined Folklore/Evermore era, and it absolutely kills every time she performs it, especially when she transitions from “August” to “Illicit Affairs,” a transition that still gives me chills. And while I would love to see her perform this song in a more intimate venue between “Cardigan” and “Betty” one day, in the meantime we have her brilliant performance of it from the Eras Tour concert film, which you can watch below: