Taylor Swift’s song “betty” tells James’s perspective in the fictional love triangle connected to “august.”
The three related Folklore songs are “cardigan,” “august,” and “betty.” “cardigan” centers on Betty, “august” follows the unnamed summer-romance narrator, and “betty” presents James as he reflects on his actions and seeks forgiveness.
Swift created the characters as part of Folklore’s fictional storytelling world. The songs deliberately leave room for interpretation, but the character relationships are clear enough to form a connected narrative across three different voices.
A frequent mix-up is identifying “betty” as Betty’s song solely because her name appears in the title. In the story’s structure, the title names the person James addresses; the narrator is James.