James is the male love interest in Taylor Swift’s “august.”
The song is narrated by a girl involved in a brief summer romance with James. He is already connected to Betty, and the relationship ultimately ends when James returns to Betty. This makes “august” one part of a larger fictional love triangle on Folklore.
The three perspectives are distributed across “august,” “Betty,” and “Cardigan.” James narrates “Betty,” while Betty narrates “Cardigan.” The narrator of “august” is not given a formal name in the song, although Swift has referred to her privately as Augusta or Augustine.
Listeners sometimes call the narrator Augustine because that name is associated with the song’s character, but the male character being addressed is James. Inez, meanwhile, is a separate name mentioned in “Betty,” not the central love interest in “august.”