Taylor Swift’s “august” is track 8 on the standard edition of Folklore.
The placement creates a deliberate calendar connection: “august” is the eighth song on Swift’s eighth studio album, Folklore. That numerical coincidence helped fans connect the song with its namesake month and contributed to the annual August listening tradition.
Folklore was released as a surprise album on July 24, 2020. “august” appears after “seven” and before “this is me trying,” placing it in the middle of the album’s narrative arc. It is also one part of the record’s fictional teenage love triangle, alongside “cardigan” and “betty.”
A common mix-up is treating “august” as a single released separately from Folklore. It was an album track rather than a conventional pre-release single, although its recurring seasonal popularity later made it one of the album’s best-known songs.