James narrates Taylor Swift’s “betty,” one of the two companion songs to “august.” In Folklore’s fictional teenage love triangle, James is the boy whose actions connect Betty with the unnamed girl associated with the late-summer romance.
The three songs divide the story by viewpoint. “cardigan” is linked to Betty, “betty” is linked to James, and “august” is voiced from the perspective of the girl who hoped her relationship with James might last. This structure lets the same emotional situation appear differently depending on who is remembering it.
The song title can make the answer less obvious because “betty” is the name of the person James addresses. The narrator is James, not Betty. Similarly, Augustine is the summer-romance character in the surrounding narrative, not the speaker of “betty.”
Swift’s use of fictional names was part of Folklore’s broader move toward character-based storytelling. The songs are often discussed together, but each remains a separate composition with its own narrator and musical identity.