The Night Pink Elephants Made Me King of My World — The Story Behind "King of My World"
The Night Pink Elephants Made Me King of My World , The Story Behind “King of My World”
When you spend years building a routine, stepping away from it isn’t just about changing a habit, it’s like tearing down a wall you’ve lived behind for decades. With The Buey Project, I’ve never set out to write neat, polished pop songs that fit comfortably into radio formats. This entire musical journey, from the introspective depths of Where I Am to the raw resilience of Still Here, has been about digging into the uncomfortable truths of my own life. It’s about mental health, struggle, dependency, and the messy reality of trying to grow up, even when you’re already grown.
Today, I want to talk about the third song in this series: “King of My World.”
If you’ve followed along from the start, you know every track is pinned to a specific moment in time, an emotion I couldn’t simply talk out loud about. This song, in particular, was born out of a very specific, somewhat surreal night that reminded me just how fragile our control can be when we let old ghosts back in through the front door.
The Crutch We Think We’ve Buried
To understand “King of My World,” you have to understand my relationship with weed. For twenty-five years, it was my default escape hatch. After a long day at work, when the noise of the world felt too loud or my own thoughts felt too sharp to handle, I’d light up. To me, it wasn’t just a habit; it was a bubble. It made everything feel wonderfully numb. In that haze, nothing else really mattered. The bills, the stress, the future, they all dissolved into the background.
But life catches up with you. A few months before the night this song was written, I made the decision to give it up. My health was telling me it was time, I didnt really want to but the alternative wasn’t an option.
And then came a completely ordinary evening that turned everything sideways.
It started innocently enough: a game of pool with some mates, a few beers, easy conversation. Someone handed me a joint. Twenty-five years of muscle memory makes saying “no” tricky in a weak moment, but after months of sobriety, I figured, what’s one night? Just a harmless little throwback.
It wasn’t harmless. It hit me like a freight train.
When the Real World Shatters
Maybe my tolerance had plummeted in those few months off, or maybe the stuff was just far stronger than anything I used to smoke back in the day. Whatever the reason, it completely derailed me.
Within minutes, I lost all sensation in my legs. I was sitting completely still on a chair, looking straight ahead into nothingness, but inside my head, the room was spinning violently. And then, the hallucinations kicked in.
It was like something straight out of an old independent film. I started seeing vintage New York underground trains rumbling past me in the dark. These weren’t sleek, modern carriages; they were battered, trashed relics of the past, completely covered in wild, vibrant spray-paint graffiti. And right there, stamped across the side of the metal carriages, were massive, surreal pink elephants staring right back at me.
I feel numb
In my bubble that I created
Pink elephants on the train now desecrated
There I was, trapped in my own head, staring at ghost trains and pink elephants while the world around me kept moving. But beneath the bizarre imagery, a cold wave of panic started to rise. I had work in the morning. Real responsibilities. Real life waiting for me when the sun came up. I knew I couldn’t just sit there paralysed all night in my own weird dimension. I had to force my numb legs to move, had to navigate my way home to my bed, because if I didn’t shake it off, that mental trip would have felt like an epic, agonising eternity.
That push and pull: the desperate desire to escape into a numb bubble versus the crushing realisation that the real world is waiting to demand accountability: is the exact heartbeat of this song.
The Trap of Escapism in Independent Songwriting
Writing independent music gives you the rare freedom to be brutally honest with yourself. In mainstream music, everything is often sanded down to a smooth, radio-friendly gloss. But real life isn’t glossy. Real life involves relapsing into old behaviours, staring blankly at walls, and feeling like a fraud when you know you’ll have to face tomorrow’s responsibilities on four hours of restless sleep.
When I sat down to flesh out “King of My World,” I wanted to capture that exact duality.
King of my world
Where nothing else matters
In the real world
Everything shatters
There is a fleeting, seductive power in isolation. When you retreat into your own mind, you feel like a king sitting on a throne of absolute detachment. Nothing can hurt you because nothing matters. But the second you open your eyes, the castle walls crumble. The medication, the substance, the coping mechanism: it all had a hold of me far deeper than I wanted to admit.
Knowing in the morning I’d fall from grace wasn’t just about a hangover or being tired for work; it was about the quiet disappointment of breaking a promise to myself.
Why Honest Storytelling Matters
If you’re reading this as a fan of alternative rock, indie music, or raw songwriting, you probably know that connection doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from vulnerability. When I started The Buey Project, I wasn’t trying to build a brand or chase industry trends. I just needed an outlet for the thoughts that wouldn’t let me sleep.
Sharing a story about getting too high after twenty-five years of smoking isn’t glamorous. It’s awkward, it’s messy, and it highlights a moment where I wasn’t at my best. But that’s precisely why the song exists. If you’ve ever used something to numb your edges, if you’ve ever built a mental bubble just to escape the pressure cooker of daily life, and if you’ve ever had that jarring wake-up call where reality rushes back in: then you know exactly what “King of My World” sounds like.
This song is a reminder that healing isn’t a straight line. Sometimes you slip backward, you see the pink elephants on the train, and you have to drag yourself back to reality before the sun comes up. But as long as we’re honest about the struggle, we keep moving forward.
Thank you for listening, for following along with this album journey, and for supporting independent music that tells the real story. Stay tuned, because there’s plenty more of this journey left to share.