Taylor Swift’s “cardigan” is paired with “august” and “betty” in Folklore’s love-triangle narrative.
The three songs explore the same fictional situation from different perspectives. “cardigan” is associated with Betty, “betty” presents James’s viewpoint, and “august” follows the unnamed girl involved with James during the summer.
The songs are not arranged as a single continuous story in the album’s track list, but their characters and details connect them. Swift used imagined characters and story arcs throughout Folklore, moving away from the assumption that every lyric was autobiographical.
Listeners sometimes substitute “willow,” which is also a Swift song connected with a romantic narrative, but it appears on Evermore rather than Folklore and is not part of this three-song story.