James is the 17-year-old boy at the center of the love triangle described in Taylor Swift’s “august.” The song is narrated by a girl who has a brief summer romance with James, even though he is already connected to Betty.
The story continues across three Folklore songs. “august” presents the perspective of the unnamed girl, “Cardigan” presents Betty’s perspective, and “Betty” presents James’s perspective. Swift used the three songs to explore the same fictional situation from different emotional angles.
Listeners sometimes call the narrator Augustine or Augusta, but Swift said she imagined possible names for the character without assigning one in the song. James, by contrast, is explicitly named in the connected narrative. The song’s story is fictional rather than a confirmed account of Swift’s own teenage life.