In Taylor Swift’s song “august,” Augustine loves the fictional character James.
James is the teenage boy at the center of Folklore’s interconnected love triangle. He spends a summer with Augustine, but the relationship is temporary because he is still tied to Betty. The song presents Augustine’s side of that story, emphasizing hope, longing, and the pain of realizing that the romance was never permanent.
James is also the narrator of the song “Betty,” while Betty tells her own side in “Cardigan.” Together, the three songs form one of Folklore’s best-known narrative devices: the same relationship is viewed through three distinct characters.
Because “august” is written from Augustine’s point of view, some listeners mistakenly assume the narrator is singing about Taylor Swift’s personal life. Swift instead described these songs as fictional narratives with imagined characters and story arcs.