Taylor Swift wrote "august" first for the Folklore trilogy containing it.
The trilogy consists of "Cardigan," "august," and "Betty," which together explore a fictional love triangle involving Betty, James, and an unnamed young woman. Although the three songs are heard as a connected narrative, Swift wrote "august" before the other two songs in the group.
The song's early creation helped establish the story's emotional situation: a summer relationship that feels meaningful to its narrator but is never truly hers. Swift later developed the related viewpoints of Betty and James, allowing the album to revisit the same events through different characters. The order in which the tracks appear or became widely discussed should not be confused with their writing order.