Taylor Swift’s “august”: An Ode to the Pining of Girlhood

Taylor Swift, photo by Beth Garrabrant

I can recall the final hours of July 31st, 2022, as I filled out my weekly agenda, beginning with Monday, August 1st. August tends to be a bleak month — the Fourth of July fireworks are long in storage, the preparations for “back-to-school” begin, and we re-examine the sweater racks as the daylight inevitably reduces. Yet, a small twinge of joy filled my chest, and the chests of thousands, as Taylor Swift breathily singing the words salt air filled our brains — the first words in her song “august.”

“august” was not promoted as a single, yet garnered a disproportionate amount of attention compared to other songs off Taylor’s acclaimed 2020 album folklore. Oddly, this seems to be the case for many Swift songs, “All Too Well” from Red (2012) and, of course, Red (Taylor’s Version) (2022) being a perfect example. These songs aren’t necessarily intended to be the standouts, they aren’t the ones designed to hook listeners into streaming the album after a listen. And yet, they are the songs that are coming to define Taylor’s discography among fans and critics alike. Why?

While songs like “Shake It Off” and “22” have the catchiness and radio bait qualities of any good (and in my opinion, great) pop single, the power of songs like “august” and “All Too Well” are in the small things. It’s what separates a color-by-numbers sketch and a Michelangelo oil painting — a care for details and depth so great, that it evokes feelings and excavates memories you didn’t know existed. In “All Too Well,” it’s the you almost ran the red ’cause you were lookin’ over at me, the we’re dancing around the kitchen in the refrigerator light, and of course, the infamous Scarf left at a heartbreaker’s sister’s house, in an untouched drawer. There is a time and place for “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” And there is a time and place for immersion. And like any good novelist, in these songs, Taylor takes care to world build — we can feel the wind in our air, we can see the harsh glare of the refrigerator light, and we can smell the Scarf.

The themes of heartbreak and unrequited love aren’t new in music, particularly music of the singer-songwriter variety. And while writing songs about fictitious characters may be new to Taylor on folklore, it’s not a new musical concept. Nonetheless, there is a line in “august” that manages to simultaneously pierce the hearts and scrutinize the history of every listener. We all know it.

Cancel my plans just in case you’d call

And say “Meet me behind the mall.”

It’s a Friday afternoon and you’re a ninth grader. You’re squeezing your worn notebook into your bulging backpack and shoving crumpled worksheets into its laptop compartment. You take a sip of stale water from your lukewarm Camelbak and carry your jacket under your arm (it was cold when you arrived in the morning and has since warmed up). As you walk to the parking lot for your mom to pick you up, forehead gleaming with perspiration and a slight stench, a friend shouts your name. She asks if you have plans tonight, to which you hesitate. Sure, you don’t technically have things scheduled, but you could potentially have a plan with Him. You glance at your phone — no Snapchats, no texts. You tell your friend you’re busy.

Then you head home for an evening of waiting. An evening of doing your homework with your notifications on and your phone meticulously placed in your peripheral vision — not so close that you look desperate, but just close enough that a text message notification will catch your eyes. You lay on your bed, the phone now placed on your chest. You eat dinner when your mom calls you and decline her popcorn and movie invitation — He might text after all. And when all hope is lost, when the tears have begun brimming in your eyes, when the feelings of despair have come creeping in like summer house spiders, and you’re confident you’ll be crying yourself to sleep — you feel your phone vibrate.

Your whole sense of self hinging on a hey or a wyd. On a Meet me behind the mall.

Suddenly, your tears are sucked back into your ducts, as if someone rewound the tape. And the worst part is that deep down, you know it’s pathetic. You know that He is doing His homework, playing video games, talking to His mom, and going about His business. All the while, you sit and wait like a dog staring out a window waiting for its owner to return home.

As time passes, it’s easy, and frankly healthy, to look back at these events and laugh. And yet, Taylor manages to package these feelings of desire, shame, and incessant pining in a tidy two-liner. In just fifteen words, she strips us all down, shoves us under a magnifying glass, and sends us back to laying on our twin beds with our phones glued to our hands, waiting and waiting.

Taylor has been open about the true meaning behind this song — a fictional love triangle between Betty, James, and Augustine/Augusta, with the namesake of “august” being “the other woman.” But as with all art, meaning is easily extrapolated by its beholders. While being “the other woman” and the victim of a one-sided summer fling is relatable to some, pitiful teenage pining for a boy who thinks about you once, maybe twice, a week is all too familiar. Rearranging your whole weekend out of the possibility of your crush asking you to do something as mundane as hanging out at the mall has been a remarkable part of many of our childhoods. Our girlhoods.

From the Disney princess movies we watch as toddlers, to the pop songs marketed to us as teenagers, to the relationship questions we’ll forever be prodded with at family events, love is shoved down girls’ throats more than any other topic. From day one, we’re conditioned into thinking our happily-ever-after must include a man. That if we find the One, all of our problems will somehow melt away. Conditioned into thinking romance is the antidote to every ailment, we seek it out with intensity, even at the expense of maintaining and cultivating healthy relationships with family members and friends.

For many, this phenomenon is so commonplace that it flies under our radar, it’s just a part of having teenage crushes. And yet, when Taylor croons the line cancel my plans just in case you call, it sends a steadfast punch to our stomaches, a sinking in our chests. She’s shining a flashlight right on our subconscious. This is you. This is all of us.

I’ve heard that some of the best books don’t teach you something new, but rather tell you what you already know. They illuminate something that seems so obvious, but that you’ve never fully considered or understood until after reading them. The appeal of Taylor’s music works the same way — her lyrics hold up a mirror for us that we couldn’t quite reach, they scratch an itch we didn’t realize we had, and they numb a ringing in our ears that we didn’t notice until it’s stopped. She spells out the feeling, the phenomenon, whatever it may be, in red ink so we don’t have to.

There is satisfaction in obtaining a deeper understanding of ourselves. It’s why so many therapists and mindfulness experts advise people to label their emotions when they feel overwhelmed with feelings. On the upward roadmap of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the need for “esteem” or recognition and respect for ourselves and from others must be achieved before an individual can reach “self-actualization.” Songs like “august,” that identify these often isolating phenomena show listeners that they aren’t alone, that their emotions are valid, and that even mega-stars like Taylor Swift know the feeling of one-sided pining.

Artistic expressions like “august” are essential for people’s well-being. They keep the world spinning. And they make those girls that keep their phones in tight peripheral view feel a little less, and somehow also a little more, crazy. But all the more validated.