The part about the whale in the cubicle is about being confined. The image is of a huge animal crammed in a tiny space. "Nails under your cuticles" is another image conveying the same idea of confinement. You normally think of fingernails as being exposed (free), but he is describing the part confined under the dead skin of the cuticles.
The chorus follows the same theme, where the "neural walls" I think represent figurative walls built to confine your mind. Plasticities is like plastic cities, the antithesis of the "dying cities" of culture described in the first part of the chorus, where everything is plastic, prepackaged, impersonal, and efficient. I think the song is mostly a statement about the confinement of the music industry, both on the art it produces and on the public in general as listeners, to whom it is easier to sell music that can be neatly classified and marketed, and that is simple enough to understand immediately. I think the song can also be applied to the culture as a whole, though.
The part about the whale in the cubicle is about being confined. The image is of a huge animal crammed in a tiny space. "Nails under your cuticles" is another image conveying the same idea of confinement. You normally think of fingernails as being exposed (free), but he is describing the part confined under the dead skin of the cuticles.
The chorus follows the same theme, where the "neural walls" I think represent figurative walls built to confine your mind. Plasticities is like plastic cities, the antithesis of the "dying cities" of culture described in the first part of the chorus, where everything is plastic, prepackaged, impersonal, and efficient. I think the song is mostly a statement about the confinement of the music industry, both on the art it produces and on the public in general as listeners, to whom it is easier to sell music that can be neatly classified and marketed, and that is simple enough to understand immediately. I think the song can also be applied to the culture as a whole, though.