Taylor Swift’s “Cardigan” forms a fictional love triangle with “august” and “Betty.”
The three songs appear on Folklore and tell interconnected stories involving Betty, James, and the unnamed female narrator of “august.” “Cardigan” is told from Betty’s perspective, while “Betty” is told from James’s perspective. “august” focuses on the girl involved in James’s summer romance.
Swift used the three songs to explore how different people can remember the same relationship differently. The stories are fictional, and the characters were created as part of the album’s imagined world.
Listeners sometimes call the narrator of “august” Augustine or Augusta, but Swift did not give that character a definitive name in the song. The established named characters in the triangle are Betty and James.