"August" by Taylor Swift, but rewritten to be told from James's perspective.
The Folklore album contains three songs that Taylor Swift describes as the "teenage love triangle," and those three songs are suspected to be Betty, Cardigan, and August. Betty is sung from James's perspective, Cardigan from Betty's perspective, and August from an unnamed girl's perspective.
In the original version of August, the girl who sings the song seems to be in love with James, while the relationship for him is just a summer fling. Later on in the song Betty, James admits that he still has feelings for Betty even after the summer relationship and wants to patch up their relationship. In the song Cardigan, Betty describes the experience of losing James, and then seems to forgive James in the end.
I thought it would be interesting to rewrite August from James's perspective to give him some more character depth and an explanation for why he would cheat on Betty. I think most people see him as the villain of the story, but I thought there would be a way to turn that black and white perspective into more of a gray one.
Here are the lyrics of my rewrite and the original side by side. I did my best to keep the rhyme scheme and the structure of the song the same. Below is the video of the song.
In the song Betty, James explains that he still had feelings for Betty even while with the other girl, saying,
"Slept next to her but
I dreamt of you all summer long"
I tried to add more of this feeling into my rewrite of the song, like in the line, "Feelings that I wish I'd ignored," and in the chorus with, "I could tell you that it meant nothing." Even after admitting he was with another girl, he is still concerned about Betty in the second verse saying "Did you hear? Did it make you cry?"
In the song Betty, James briefly mentions that he saw Betty with a different guy, saying that while he was in the gym,
"I saw you dance with him"
In my rewrite, James adds onto that story, admitting, "I thought that you were dating that new guy." I tried to make it seem as if James overthought what he had seen in the gym, deciding that Betty had started to date somebody else, when in reality he might have been mistaken.
In the song Betty, James seems to have a lot of doubts and insecurity about going back to Betty's doorstep, asking several questions,
"But if I just showed up at your party
Would you have me?
Would you want me?"
In other parts of the rewrite, James describes more of his insecurities, saying "I was so alone," to justify why he started a relationship with someone else. He also goes more in depth in the bridge, saying how he felt like he wasn't good enough for Betty. He said he did his best to try to be "the man [she] deserved," but in the end, changing was too hard.
In the song Cardigan, Betty says about James,
"And when I felt like I was an old cardigan
Under someone's bed
You put me on and said I was your favorite"
In the outro of the rewrite, I added in a little story about James giving Betty her cardigan and telling her "you were my favorite," kind of as an inside joke. In actuality, I think the cardigan actually just belonged to Betty, but I thought it would be a fun twist to bring it up again in the rewrite and tie it back to the other song.
Some people in the comment sections on YouTube and Facebook were sad to hear so little said about the August girl in this rewrite. But I think that if the story was really told from James's perspective, he wouldn't have much to say about that girl and would be primarily focused on how he messed up his relationship with Betty.
This was my very first rewrite, and I think I learned a lot from the experience. If I were to do it again, I would try to make the vowel sounds in the rhymes match the original. For example, in the original lyrics in the chorus, the rhymes are "time, mine, wine." I switched the vowel sound to "oh," and my rhymes were "know, alone, show." In retrospect I think that keeping the same "i" sound would have made the rewrite a little more cohesive and believable when compared to the original.
Anyway, that's my nerdy analysis! Hope you found it interesting. :)
Abby
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If you're new here, welcome to my blog! My name is Abby Lyons and I'm a singer-songwriter. I share original songs on YouTube and Spotify. I also teach on Fender Play as a ukulele instructor. Thanks for visiting my blog! :)
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