Taylor Swift’s “august” first appeared on an album in 2020, when Folklore was released.
Folklore arrived on July 24, 2020, as Swift’s eighth studio album. It was created and released during the COVID-19 pandemic, and its surprise rollout differed from the long promotional campaigns used for many major pop albums.
The song’s annual August resurgence came later, after listeners connected its title and late-summer imagery with the calendar month. Its recurring popularity does not mean the song was released in August; the original release was in July.
The year is also distinct from 2021, when Swift performed the song at the Grammys, and 2022, when Billboard documented a major streaming increase. Those later milestones are often remembered alongside the original 2020 release.