James is the boy involved in the summer romance described in Taylor Swift’s “august.”
The song is one part of a fictional love triangle on Folklore involving James, Betty, and the unnamed narrator of “august.” James is already connected to Betty, while the narrator remembers a brief relationship with him during the summer.
“august” is told from the perspective of the other girl in the triangle. She hopes the relationship might become lasting, but the song makes clear that James never truly belonged to her. Betty later becomes the focus of the song “cardigan,” while James narrates “betty.”
The characters are fictional creations for the album’s storytelling world, not direct identifications of real people in Swift’s life. Some listeners call the narrator Augustine because of the song’s imagery and fan interpretations, but James is the clearly named male character in the trilogy.