“August” was written first among Taylor Swift’s Folklore songs “august,” “Cardigan,” and “Betty.”
Swift created the three songs as a connected fictional narrative about a love triangle involving James, Betty, and the unnamed narrator of “august.” Although listeners often encounter the story through the tracks’ thematic links, the writing order did not follow the apparent chronology of the characters’ experiences.
According to the song’s background, Swift wrote “august” first, then developed the other perspectives. The track centers on a fleeting summer relationship and the narrator’s realization that James was never truly hers. “Cardigan” and “Betty” add different emotional viewpoints to the same imagined story.
This fact is easy to confuse with track order or release order. “Cardigan” was promoted as Folklore’s lead single, and “Betty” gives the trilogy its most explicit character dialogue, but neither was the first of the three written. The earliest was “august.”