august is a song which is, in part, about escape. The narrator wants to escape with James, into isolation, where they can be in love and stay in love. A running theme throughout the song is the notion that nothing else really matters to her; indeed, she says as much quite directly (“I never needed anything more”1). I’ve already spoken about the isolation of the narrator’s world, and I think I’ve explored the idea that their love could only really exist in that isolated world.2 However, what I haven’t really thought about yet is how this intersects with the idea of escaping.
It’s a very human urge, the desire to escape – to just up sticks and leave, with or without a plan. I know I’m not alone in having entertained such a fantasy. I don’t even really know what I’d be escaping from; my life is good, I’m safe, I’m surrounded by wonderful people, and I’m happy. But the urge to escape is still there. Sometimes, my daydreams take me to an off-grid cabin, next to a lake, surrounded by pine trees, with a mile-long driveway and no other signs of civilisation. There, I’d be able to sit out on the wooden jetty on the warmer days, breathing, just breathing. Maybe I’d take up fishing. I’d start, and finish, my two books: a primer on cognitive bias, and the next American novel.
There’s always a temptation to go missing, partly just to see if one’s absence is noticed. Of course, I’m sure it would be. Apart from anything, work would realise quite quickly that they were paying someone who wasn’t showing up, and my parents would notice a distinct lack of Strava activity (running away is the only type of running I wouldn’t track). I wouldn’t actually do it – it’s just an idle thought, a temptation immediately discarded as both impractical and, in fact, undesirable.
In reality, all I’d want to escape from is society. I’m mixed on modernity too, of course. I’m no luddite: I love technology, and what it enables. That said, I do yearn for the quiet life, away from things that buzz and whirr, where I can create in freedom. But what really wears me down sometimes is society. Obligations to people, and people having obligations to me. I love it most of the time, but it’s impossible to not feel throttled by it every once in a while. It can be a little relentless.
For the narrator of august, escape is slightly different from my isolationist daydreams. She doesn’t want to escape on her own: she wants to escape with James. Isolation from society, yes, but not from all of it. Society, and the wider world, pose a threat to the only thing she really wants. She cancels her plans just so that escape is possible, so that there are no barriers, just on the off-chance a moment presents itself. Maybe she only seeks a momentary escape from the solitude of her bedroom into the arms of her lover – for him to call and whisk her away for an evening.
But it feels as though she also wants a more permanent escape. So much of august is left unsaid – spiritually, it’s a jazz song3 – and we never find out where they were going when the narrator pulled up and told James to get in the car. But I don’t think the destination is the point. I think the point is that they needed to go somewhere, anywhere, to be alone. What mattered was what they were leaving behind.
- This line has a possible dual meaning: “I never needed anything more than I need this”, and “I never needed anything other than this”. ↩︎
- A post exploring the exact situation is incoming, but even at the surface level, it’s evident that there are certain barriers to a successful relationship. ↩︎
- Jazz being, famously, about the notes you don’t play. ↩︎