Taylor Swift’s “cardigan” pairs with “august” and “betty” to complete Folklore’s fictional love-triangle trilogy.
The three songs follow the characters Betty, James, and an unnamed young woman from different perspectives. “august” centers on the summer romance between the unnamed narrator and James, while “betty” is connected to James’s perspective.
“cardigan” is associated with Betty and gives the trilogy its third viewpoint. The songs are not presented as a conventional sequential narrative, but their shared characters and events connect them within Folklore’s imagined world.
A common mix-up is choosing “the 1” or “illicit affairs,” both of which are also Folklore tracks. They do not belong to the James-Betty-Augustine storyline.