Taylor Swift wrote “august” first among the three Folklore songs forming the fictional love triangle.
The trio consists of “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty.” Their connected characters are Betty, James, and the unnamed young woman at the center of “august.” Each song presents a different emotional angle on the same imagined teenage relationship.
Swift has described “august” as the perspective of a girl involved in an undefined summer relationship with James. He is already connected to Betty, so the song captures the narrator’s longing, uncertainty, and eventual realization that the romance was never truly hers.
Listeners sometimes assume “cardigan” came first because it opens the album and became the most prominent single from the trio. Album order and writing order are different: “august” was the first of the three that Swift wrote.