Taylor Swift + songwriting progression over the years

THE TOTALLY STRAIGHT EXPLANATION FOR “AUGUST”

Like most seventeen year old boys, James is extremely thoughtful and tender. “Are you sure,” he asks the girl with whom he wants to cheat on his girlfriend, Betty. “Neither of us have done something like this before, and even though all I can think about is having sex with you, all the time, I think it’s really important that we first consider the gravity of our actions before we do anything impulsive.”

August slipped away, like the exquisite boxes of zinfandel they’d buy for each other at the corner store with their fake IDs. And now, as the school year begins, our unnamed female love interest looks back on that summer month with the kind of profound understanding that teenagers often acquire after a month or so of self reflection. “You were never mine,” she understands. They weren’t Facebook official, and they were never going to be. Ruefully she wonders, “If only I’d paid more attention to your broad chest and strong biceps than your slim and beautiful back, which I liked to look at when we were, um, sunbathing…”

With the poignant elegance of a high school girl whose been dumped, our once loved girl holds on to her bittersweet memories of that time and all the hours she spent pining in anticipation, hoping that once James was done checking out the new fall fashions at The Gap and J. Crew he’d call her up and say, “Hey…You! Wanna share a wheatgrass smoothie with me behind the mall?”

And like a folk song, their love will be passed on.