James is the boy in Taylor Swift’s “august” love-triangle story.
The song is one part of a narrative spread across three Folklore tracks: “Cardigan,” “Betty,” and “August.” James is the teenage boy at the center of the story. “Betty” presents his perspective, while “Cardigan” presents Betty’s perspective and “august” presents the perspective of the unnamed girl involved in a summer romance with him.
The narrator of “august” is never given a name in the song. Swift said she imagined calling the character Augusta or Augustine privately, but those names are not established as the character’s canonical name in the lyrics.
This creates a common mix-up: August is the month and the song title, not the boy’s name. James is also not the narrator of “august”; he is the person the narrator longs for during the brief relationship portrayed in the track.