James is the 17-year-old character in the love-triangle story connected to Taylor Swift’s “august.”
The three related Folklore songs are “Cardigan,” “august,” and “Betty.” James is the boy at the center of the triangle: “Cardigan” is associated with Betty’s perspective, “Betty” with James’s perspective, and “august” with the unnamed girl who falls for him.
In the story, James has a brief summer romance with the “august” narrator before returning to Betty. The song’s emotional tension comes from the narrator realizing that the relationship was never fully hers.
James is a fictional character within Folklore’s imagined narratives, not a confirmed name for a real person in Swift’s life. William Bowery is a songwriting pseudonym associated with the album, so it is unrelated to the character’s identity.