analysing the lyrics to 'august' by taylor swift
this is gonna be a long post but i put a lot of effort into it so i hope you like it <3
before i begin, let me explain the folklore love triangle to the unaware. taylor swift's 8th album, folklore, has a love triangle, with all 3 characters getting a song from their povs. the basic story is this: betty and james are together, james sees betty dance with another guy at a school dance (and to add to it, he has social anxiety). he's upset, and while he's leaving, he runs into augustine. he and augustine have a summer fling, but betty finds out and is mad at him. james then breaks things off with augustine and tries to win betty back. the ending is left up to the audience's interpretation.
[note: taylor has used he/him pronouns for james & she/her pronouns for both betty and augustine, so those are what i will be using in this analysis.]
betty's song is 'cardigan', james' song is 'betty' & augustine's song is 'august'.
i'm going to be doing a deep dive into the lyrics of august, happy reading <3
salt air and the rust on your door, i never needed anything more
the opening line sets the scene. they're near the sea, at a beach, possibly staying in a cabin, a typical setting for a summer romance. augustine says 'your door', not 'the door'. already, he (james) is the one with the upper hand. it's his door, his cabin, his terms, but that's all she's ever needed. she's going along with whatever he wants because she'd do anything & put up with anything if it means being able to be with him.
whispers of "are you sure? never have i ever before"
whispers. this is augustine recollecting what happens, and even when she's reminiscing, they're whispering. the moment is in private. it's precious. there is a fond, longing undertone. even after what has happened, she'd still do anything to get that back. the 'never have i ever before' probably means that this is either her or both of their first time having sex. never have i ever is also a popular teen game, so that lays down a light, playful atmosphere. it's a happy memory.
and the whispers themselves: this could either be 1) a conversation between her & james, or 2) one of them saying both sentences. the "are you sure" sounds like asking for consent. they're probably losing their virginities to each other. either way, one thing is clear: uncertainty is a prominent theme in this memory. they don't know what they're doing, but there's a thrill to the unknown, to the riskiness of it all.
"but i can see us lost in the memory, august slipped away into a moment in time, 'cause it was never mine"
to her, this memory exists outside of time. just thinking about it makes her feel everything she did then. however, she also knows that despite how attached she is to it, she has lost the memory to time. she's holding onto whatever she can, but the truth is, it's gone. it was never even hers. the worst part is that even back then, she knew it never belonged to her. she knew she was nothing but a distraction, a lapse in judgement, but she went with it anyway, because she took whatever she could get. she'd rather be a distraction than be nothing.
"and i can see us twisted in bedsheets, august sipped away like a bottle of wine, 'cause you were never mine"
again, adding to the "never have i ever before" part- they slept together. losing one's virginity is a major experience, and that, coupled with the fact that the experience was with james, makes this something she remembers every single detail of.
when teens drink alcohol, it's rarely wine. it's usually beer, or vodka, but never wine. the usage of wine shows how they were trying to be adults, pretending that they were making a mature decision by being together when really, they weren't.
it was sipped away like a bottle of wine. slowly, they got drunk on august. they took sips, and went about it slowly, day by day, until there was nothing left and they had to face reality. if we're taking it literally, they probably spent the entire summer drinking and hooking up.
and finally, "'cause you were never mine." the first part of the chorus ends with "'cause it (august) was never mine", as if blaming the month, the season, and/or time itself. she was blaming fate. here, though, she switches. it's as if, while reminiscing, she has come to terms with the fact that the problem here wasn't with august, it was with them. with him. it wasn't august that was never hers, it was james.
the difference between 'slipped away' and 'sipped away' is stark. one says that it was fleeting and happened quickly & the other says they took their time with it and enjoyed it. the tone of the memory changes with the emotion that augustine reminisces them with. we must remember that both james & augustine (who narrate what happened) are unreliable narrators.
another interesting detail is this: in the previous line, she says "lost in the memory", which is very vague. she isn't delving into the details, just brushing it off, saying "oh, yeah, it was a nice time i guess, but it's in the past now". she follows that up with "it was never mine". in the second line, however, she gets specific, like she's actually thinking over what happened. "twisted in bedsheets" is a specific memory. and when she really lets herself think about what happened, she needs to accept that HE, not it, was never hers.
"your back beneath the sun, wishing i could write my name on it"
again, visual imagery. the picture being painted here appears to be after james and augustine sleep together. augustine must've woken up before him because she's looking at how his back looks in the sun. she wishes she could do something as public as writing her name on it. it's a metaphor for not wanting to have to be a secret, but she knew, even while drowsy and possibly hungover (remember the mention of wine), that it could never be.
also interesting is that "your back" could also be her saying "you're back". it doesn't make sense in the complete context of the line, but thinking of it as an exclamation, a secret exhale hidden within the lyrics is heartbreaking.
"will you call when you're back at school? i remember thinking i had you"
she's either older than him (which would be weird and illegal because james is 17), goes to a different school, or they never interact at school. for the sake of analysis, i'm going to assume it's the 3rd one, but it's open to interpretation.
which means they weren't friends at school. they did not hang out in the same groups. she doesn't even expect him to acknowledge her in public, all she wants to know is if he might call her. in private. she hates being a secret, but she's begging him to let her be one because all the bare minimum is enough to get her by.
the second line is sadder when you remember that just before this, she was wishing she could write her name on his back, but knowing that she couldn't. she KNEW, the whole time, that this was just a fling for him, but deep down she a part of her still thought he truly cared for her, that she was as important to him as he was to her.
(but i can see us...you were never mine)
"back when we were still changing for the better, wanting was enough, for me, it was enough"
the first part here is a throwback to when they were younger and 'innocent'. when they'd make a mistake, it wouldn't be the end of the world, they'd just learn. that was before her august with james, because that became something she couldn't come back from. if you've heard 'betty', you know that inez, betty's friend, finds out about their fling and tells betty (and possibly more people). seeing as augustine was never a part of their group in the first place, she will likely be always remembered as the girl james cheated on betty with and nothing more than that. this is something that's going to deeply, deeply affect her, both socially and mentally.
but back then, before she'd asked him to get in her car, before the affair, before heartbreak, she'd just been a girl wanting him, and at the time that was enough for her- but it no longer is. now that she knows what it's like to have had him, she doesn't want to go back to merely liking him from a distance.
something else worth noting here is the phrasing of the line. it's as if she's pleading "what you gave me was enough for me, i promise, i don't need anything else, just please come back." or: "i was happy just liking you from the sidelines, but then you turned up and ruined my life", which would have an angry undertone. the beauty of this is that she gives no elaboration, it's just you and your imagination. interpret it how you like.
there's some more wordplay here: when she says wanting, it sounds like she's saying one thing. as in, "one thing was enough." because that's all she needed- him.
"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"
the "for me it was enough" makes sense as a sentence both with the line before it and the one after it. the sentiment is the same: she was happy with the arrangement. there are contrasting themes here because she's in a messy situation. she's aware she deserves better. she knows she shouldn't be settling for the bare minimum. but now that she's lost what they had, she misses it and wants it back. she doesn't need anything more than what he's ever given her. even at the time of the fling, she prioritised him so much that she'd even cancel plans in case he decided to call her (again, him being the one to call re-emphasises the fact that he's the one with the upper hand here).
"meet me behind the mall" is, taylor swift herself said, the core of the song. it highlights how secretive they were. they could always lie, say they were going to a mall to hang out with their friends or to shop, and then secretly hook up behind it. it's also interesting when you parallel it to the fact that they were also hooking up along the beach, which is a completely different setting. this implies that this affair lasted for a while. there's alliteration used here, too.
wordplay, again: meet me behind the mall also sounds like "meet me behind them all", which, again, goes to prove how staying a secret was the most important part of their relationship.
"so much for summer love and saying us, 'cause you weren't mine to lose"
a heartbreaking contrast to augustine calling what they had "summer love" is james telling betty (in the song 'betty') that what they had was "just a summer thing". and with the second part of this line, again, we're running in circles. she thinks she deserves better, she wants him back, she's being positive about it and then she isn't. but as we're nearing the end of the song, after going through the myriad of emotions and thoughts she had in the aftermath of the affair, she seems to be coming to terms with a single fact: he was never truly hers in the first place.
some wordplay: over here, the words "never mine" repeat. it almost sounds as if she's saying "never mind". as in, forget everything i've said, it's okay, i'm okay.
"remember when i pulled up and said get in the car, and then cancelled my plans just in case you'd call, back when i was living for the hope of it all (for the hope of it all), meet me behind the mall" (x3)
we think the song is over after the bridge and third chorus, but she comes swinging again. the fact that she sings this part thrice shows just how massive an impact all this has had on her. if we take the "never mind" into consideration, this hurts more because she thought she was over it, but she isn't.
she isn't ever going to forget what happened. even though she's come to terms with what has happened, she still can't stop thinking about all of it. she's still hung up, because memories don't let one off that easily.
from 'betty' we know that the fling began after augustine asked james to get into her car. we've only been getting snippets of their time together throughout the song, but now, she's replaying the entire affair, right from the beginning. the line that is sung with the most emphasis is "meet me behind the mall" because this line is what perfectly captures their relationship: lying to everyone about going to a mall and then meeting each other, the promises that he made to her about being with her only for him to ditch her the moment august ended, everything she gave up (like the plans she cancelled) just to be able to spend some time with him, and the fact that all of this was on HIS terms. he was asking her to meet him behind the mall, and now she's the one left reminding herself of all the promises he didn't keep.
before i end the analysis, i wanted to address one more thing: her name. both betty and james are named in the lyrics, but augustine isn't. we only started calling her that after taylor swift said that in her head she calls her either augusta or augustine, meaning that until then, we were all calling her 'the august girl' or 'the other girl'. the thing is, that is how probably everyone in the story thought of her as well. (earlier in the analysis, under the "back when we were still changing for the better" part, i talked a bit about this.)
taylor herself talks about this in 'folklore: the long pond studio sessions', where she says that the 'other woman' is always thought of as a bad person, with augustine, she really, genuinely liked james, trying to act cool in front of him (pulling up and being the one to ask him to get into her car, for example). augustine was intentionally left unnamed, because her story is the one that's always left out.
that's the end of the analysis. thank you so much for reading till the end. please let me know if there's anything i left out, i'll add it and credit you.
and to everyone out there who's had their heart broken, regardless of which side of the story you were on, i'm sorry. we all deserve people who acknowledge our existence, at the very least. we deserve to be remembered, to be talked about, to have our emails replied to. we deserve better than the bare minimum, but the sad part is, we don't necessarily even get the bare minimum in the first place. we're all breaking each other's hearts and sobbing into our pillows about it and breaking each other's hearts all over again. i don't know if love is real, or if at some point the cycle stops, but i do know this: spotify is free. as is youtube. and amazon music. and soundcloud. go plug those earphones in and knock yourself out.
