Cruel Summer x august: A Doomed Summer Love

The illustrious Taylor Swift is known for the strength with which she wields her pen. Her words are unrivaled; her songwriting is unparalleled. For someone who has seemingly built her career around telling stories from her diary or from her experiences, real or imagined, she has achieved global domination, but somehow, her songs still seem to be able to be so palpably close.

This brings us to the two songs off her discography, continuing the series under Wistful Melodies. The two songs in this article are Cruel Summer and august.

Swift released Cruel Summer last August 2019 as part of her seventh studio album, 'Lover'. In what can only be described as an apparent love child between her two previous albums, '1989' and 'reputation', Cruel Summer details what Swift describes as the apocalypse that is August of 2016, following her public feud with Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

Almost a year later, amidst lockdown, and drawing from her "whims, dreams, fears, and musings," Swift released her eight studio album, 'folklore'. The unplanned album features some of her strongest songwriting to date, with stories woven into poetic lines across minimalistic production. One eye-catching track (the eighth, to be precise) is august which is part of the teenage love triangle (the other two songs being the lead single cardigan and betty), detailing the perspective of the "third party."

There were those who were quick to point out that the relationship between Cruel Summer and august goes beyond their being tinged with major Jack Antonoff vibes. Some fans noticed that Cruel Summer was released in August, while august was released in a cruel summer brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Taking this c̶l̶o̶w̶n̶e̶r̶y̶ a step further, juxtaposing the two songs does paint a tragic picture of a summer love doomed right from the very start. We will be covering this tale from the perspective of each song.

Cruel Summer: Angst, Desperation, Vulnerability

Cruel Summer talks about the inherent fragility and uncertainty that comes along with every new relationship. In a culture of romance being viewed as touch-and-go, it's certainly understandable if people choose to hold their cards close to their chest, depicting a poker face when you're about to play your ace, and just being there to enjoy the ride.

Not with Swift in Cruel Summer. This wasn't just a casual fling. Or at least, it was supposed to. But somehow, Swift found herself facing a battle on the public front and with a brewing storm with the private matters of the heart. And she paints this so vividly in this song.

The first verse shows Swift telling us that this new face has been lingering around her sphere. He's a bad boy, a shiny toy with a hefty price to pay, and she would be very wise to walk away from him instead, but she is so smitten by him. He's living in her mind rent-free, and this borderline obsession is so maddening that she devotes two lines to it:

Fever dream high in the quiet of the night

You know that I caught it

Excluding the contexts of Taylor Swift (obviously, she wrote this about the initial phase of her relationship with Joe Alwyn), the listener isn't exactly sure why he presents this certain sense of danger. The lyrics are cut-throat and razor-sharp, but they keep the listener in the dark as to the deeper reasons.

Swift then goes on to a darker viewpoint through the first pre-chorus, and it provides the listeners with an initial hint—this, like I Know Places in '1989', was meant to be a secret. They sneak out late at night, out of sight, and on to wherever their illicit affair takes them.

She recognizes this is probably not going to end well. She's been down this route before, and this time, her willingness to follow a dead-end road she blames on her devils rolling the dice. Her angels are aware that she stands to lose a lot, but hey, let him kill her right? After all, in this case, what doesn't kill her doesn't necessarily make her stronger, but only makes her attraction all the more fatal.

Where do these meetings end up to? In a consummation.

The relationship she and her lover had during that cruel summer wasn't meant to be emotional—it was only meant to be a physical relationship, a friends with benefits arrangement. He was a new face, very charming and magnetic, high-key gorgeous, and with a nice body to boot, but despite the cold shoulder Swift initially gave him, she eventually falls for him, and she knows she's in such a bad, bad place.

Her friends ask her if she's okay with it all, and she responds nonchalantly that everything's cool. There's nothing to worry about, he really is just a toy, nothing serious, it's all fun and games. But fun and games did make her lose her mind after all.

Why? Because she knows she's just an option to him. The second verse opens with an interesting metaphor using vending machines. There goes the infamous, sought-after Swift, standing next to the guy she's falling for, his face illuminated by the glow of all the other equally good (if not better) options to go for. And who can blame the lad? Again, harking back to the chorus, they settled for a physical relationship. No strings attached, whoever catches feelings loses.

And Swift pretends, similar to how desperately we shield our vulnerabilities, that she's not dying.

"Yeah," she tells him, "go for someone else, it's cool, I'm not dying. There's a ton of fish in the seas, even if we try it out, we're likely just going to screw it up what with all the media haunting me."

She bites her tongue, hoping he refutes her. That maybe, they do stand a chance, they just need to try. But, oh well, they aren't trying anything.

The pair goes on with their secret meetings, cutting headlights to make sure no one spots them. But their interactions prove Swift wrong. What doesn't kill her will bleed her out through a thousand cuts. And this summer is proving more and more like a knife that will stab her at her weakest and most vulnerable points.

He's her Achilles Heel, she admits.

And thus we come to the bridge, a hodgepodge of angst, desperation, and vulnerability taken up a notch. This bridge structure is quite similar to that of Out of the Woods, just her ranting out, almost breathlessly, to the object of her affection. The poor woman can only hold back her feelings and endure so much. Even a dam breaks when it has too much water behind it.

The knife of their summer interaction has taken its toll on her. She cries out of pain, drinking it all in an attempt to forget, but she realizes she couldn't. Her putting on a brave face doesn't help her cause either as the lies of "I'm fine" gnaw at her insides. Secrecy begets secrecy, after all.

Their attempt at keeping whatever they had away from the public's view brewed, by virtue of proximity and constancy, feelings she had to keep a secret in order to keep him. Tragic by all counts.

Swift doesn't blame him, however. Or, more precisely, she can't. She was complicit in this affair; they were a tandem. He came to pick her up (presumably in the cover of the night), and she willingly snuck out to meet him.

And so, the intense bridge culminates in her calling a spade a spade, telling him she loves him. She was aware that this would be the death of whatever they had, and she can't blame him. Whoever catches feelings loses. She has no other option but to cut her losses and move on, albeit extremely wounded.

As to how he reacted, the listener isn't told explicitly. Real-life Taylor Swift eventually ended up with Joe Alwyn and has been with him for years now. Her confessing was worth it after all.

The story, however, isn't the same for the tale we're concocting. This is a cursed summer romance doomed right from the very start. The reactive vibe and atmosphere of Cruel Summer eventually gives way, just as summer transitions into autumn, and the turn of seasons goes on and on and on.

For our purposes, we consider Cruel Summer to have been a one-shot opportunity that was inevitably going to burn down in flames.

august: Romance in Memoriam

The Cruel Summer of our younger years would eventually give way. We grow older, become more mature, and take on a more adult perspective on life. While our past doesn't automatically dictate our present, it does provide us a tendency for it. Our identity resides in our history and in our aspirations for the future.

And that is precisely what august represents. The reactionary summer love that Swift once sang in Cruel Summer is subdued into nothing but a figment of her memories she quite often digs up. Now, there is nostalgia, the looking back to a relationship that in hindsight wasn't probably for the best, but we cherish nevertheless.

august begins with a wispy production that feels like summer sweat and beach alcohol. Like in younger Swift's Cruel Summer, she begins by painting a scene from that moment—an old, rusty, perhaps secluded beach house where the romance of her youth played out. When she snuck around with her lover, it was here where they stayed, away from the public's eye.

We did leave as a question in the previous section the reason why Swift's love interest was dangerous. august reveals the cause—he, James, already belonged to another girl, Betty. Swift recognizes that indeed, like the vending machine in Cruel Summer, she was just an option available to an unfaithful James, and that nothing good was going to come out of their relationship to begin with.

Curiously, Swift isn't spiteful here. You could almost picture her smiling a wistful and melancholic smile as she sings august, harking back to it like a picturesque moment that defined her experience with love. She ponders about this love frequently, visiting and revisiting old haunts that shouldn't really be haunting her anymore.

That month of August of her younger years was the August she thought would belong to her eventually, but unfortunately, it was just another regular August tinged by an ill-fated love that marked her like a bloodstain. Alcohol shows up here again, like in Cruel Summer, with her likening that fateful month to a bottle of wine she'd end up getting drunk on and crying in the backseat of the car.

Swift continues to reminisce. Summer was a hazy dream of beaches and sensual nights with James, but Swift cannot own him. She looks longingly at him as they sunbathe, wishing that she could have her name written on his body like a tattoo, an indelible mark that was all she ever needed.

But summer has to end. Like in Cruel Summer, vacations are bound to end, and the ephemeral dreamy summer will soon have to be replaced by the cold realities of autumn. Swift asks if he would still keep in touch with her even if they've gone on to their regular lives. His answer isn't revealed, but we can safely assume that he did promise, but later on reneged on it, as Swift thought his saying he'll keep in touch meant he would still be hers even if the fantasies of summer have now ended. "I remember thinking I had you," she sings.

Unbeknownst to her, that would be the last time she'll ever get to "have" him. James would, later on, call it as just a "summer thing," that he didn't really mean going out with Swift in august, and that Betty still had his heart. Poor Swift, meanwhile, called it a "summer love."

In this context, we cannot say that august Swift is faultless. If James' account in betty is to be trusted, she was aware that he was taken by somebody else already. She was, again, complicit in this doomed romance, picking each other up like criminals aboard a getaway car.

But, as James mentions, they were both young then. They didn't know better, they were still changing for the better. And during that time, while James was figuring out how to handle a relationship but majestically blunders it by cheating, august Swift was there because she wanted him. That was enough for her.

She was always on call for him, so smitten and captivated that she couldn't trust her judgment. It was the naivety of summer romance that led her to hope that something must surely come out of all of this. To show him that she really is always there, she'd go as far as to cancel her other plans in case he asks to meet up with her. She wanted to show him the proximity and constancy that she thought he needed in a relationship, blind to him being in love with Betty.

Secrecy is, again, a character of this relationship, similar to Cruel Summer. Yes, august Swift would cancel her plans to meet up with him, but how tragic is it to meet up with her love behind the mall, as far away from the public eye as possible. It was as if James was telling her, "no one can see us, no one can know."

Lovestruck august Swift was there for it regardless.

But now, older Swift, with the maturity and wisdom of the years, laments her impressionable character. She was too immature to see that James was tied to another, and even if he broke up with Betty to be with her, there is always the chance that he once again goes astray and leaves her in the same manner.

Simply put, he wasn't hers to lose. He has always been Betty's and no matter what she does, she cannot compete with her. Right from the very start, that Cruel Summer romance was doomed, frowned upon by the stars, unwilling to allow such injustice to continue its existence.

And so, Swift unwillingly moves on to the outro, which is basically just a rehash of the bridge. This one, on a deeper inspection, seems to paint the idea that despite the intensity of the relationship as described in Cruel Summer, there wasn't much that occurred between them. The outro retells the bridge, a reprise to make up for the lack of moments with James she could rely on. Her memories are sparse pictures separated by pining and anticipation for a love she couldn't have and, subsequently, she couldn't lose.

Swift ends the song by repeating the lines, "for the hope of it all," expressing a pained rumination about what she wanted out of that relationship. She loved him alright, but that summer was tinged with the more pervasive sense of hoping he'll love her back, too—something that, by this point, is all too clear was never going to happen.

Oh, what joy would it bring her if that happened. But the best she could do is to repeat her reminiscence, dig up her memories, revisit buried bodies where they laid to rest, never quite wanting to let go as the song goes on and on until it fades into the rose-tinted memories of the past she cannot return to, in an attempt to never want things to end, never wanting to live the timeline that that Cruel Summer brought and that august continued.

A moment of tangency, if you will.

Cruel Summer x august

Summer is an admittedly special moment. It serves as a break from the rigors of work. It attempts to enliven the monotony of our lives. But summers do end. Summer romances, from personal experience and those of my friends, never seem to work out. There is a sense of tentativeness, an uncertainty that goes beyond what we are accustomed to.

Parties abound during summer. Outings with friends, hangouts with the people we hold dear. There is revelry, there is debauchery. There is the hope that whatever we invest in will yield whatever we desire.

The craving for something new, something we aren't accustomed to, pervades summer. This applies just as well to romances. Can we expect permanence from something temporary? Can we build a concrete building atop the shifting sands of the summer beaches?

Cynical as it may sound, the answer is likely no, especially with the impassioned loves of our younger days. We are out there living for the highest highs, the lowest lows, for the hope of it all. It's an emotional rollercoaster at the expense of the steady brick and mortar that all mature and healthy relationships need. And with the impressionable phase of our teenage years, it does seem like we cannot get enough of love, and that pain lingers for years to come, refining and defining our view, ideals, perspectives, and hopes for love.

And if you were unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you perceive it) enough to experience what Swift sang in Cruel Summer and august, I have this to wish of you—may that cruel summer of the past slip away into being just a moment in time.