Taylor Swift’s “august,” “Cardigan,” and “Betty” together form a fictional love triangle.
The three Folklore tracks describe overlapping events from different perspectives. “August” follows an unnamed girl involved with James during the summer, “Betty” presents James’s perspective, and “Cardigan” centers on Betty’s experience.
Swift created the songs as imagined narratives rather than straightforward autobiographical accounts. This approach helped establish Folklore’s central idea that songs could function like fragments of stories, memories, or characters from an invented world.
A common misunderstanding is that the narrator of “august” is officially named Augustine. Swift used Augusta or Augustine in discussing the character in her imagination, but the song itself leaves her unnamed. The relationship structure, not a formal character name, is the key link among the three tracks.