In Taylor Swift’s “august,” the narrator falls in love with James.
James is the teenage boy at the center of Folklore’s fictional love triangle. He is already connected to Betty, but spends part of the summer with the narrator of “august.” The relationship is undefined and temporary from the narrator’s perspective, which gives the song its wistful tone. When summer ends, James returns to Betty, leaving the narrator to mourn what she had hoped the romance might become.
The three viewpoints are divided across “august,” “Cardigan,” and “Betty.” “august” is the narrator’s perspective, “Cardigan” is Betty’s, and “Betty” is James’s. Swift created these characters as part of Folklore’s imagined story world, so the names are fictional narrative roles rather than confirmed accounts of real people in Swift’s life.