I'm not familiar with the plot of the entire album. However, when I hear this song on its own, this is the connotation I get:
This song is all about the common people striving for elitism. Imagine a common man going to college, entering the workforce optimistically. He wants money and status and a comfortable life. He doesn't imagine himself losing his freedom to his job.
The song begins with the man seeing his peers being picked off by life's trials and difficulties. He sees them cannibalized by the "big fish" (big business/bosses/corporate heirarchy). He realizes he must either become a big fish or get eaten by them.
Then the song takes a bigger viewpoint, as if a narrator is studying the whole situation. It describes several of these common men and how they fit into the picture. We have the man who wants more (optimistic), a consumer (the market), a backwoods hillbilly (out of the swamp), and a producer (drops a payload) whose art is consumed by the others (animals on animal farm).
The song then describes the man again, probably in his later years after he's been on this corporate ladder a while. He's a puppet (nervous messed up marionette) that can't escape this ride he's on (the prison ship).
The song ends with the focus pulling away from this man and seeing the whole society as an ecosystem of dinosaurs... doomed to cannibalize and feed on each other until some force greater than them destroys them. Still, in their minds they are all super-important. The grand scheme of things is much greater than they will ever be.
I'm not familiar with the plot of the entire album. However, when I hear this song on its own, this is the connotation I get:
This song is all about the common people striving for elitism. Imagine a common man going to college, entering the workforce optimistically. He wants money and status and a comfortable life. He doesn't imagine himself losing his freedom to his job.
The song begins with the man seeing his peers being picked off by life's trials and difficulties. He sees them cannibalized by the "big fish" (big business/bosses/corporate heirarchy). He realizes he must either become a big fish or get eaten by them.
Then the song takes a bigger viewpoint, as if a narrator is studying the whole situation. It describes several of these common men and how they fit into the picture. We have the man who wants more (optimistic), a consumer (the market), a backwoods hillbilly (out of the swamp), and a producer (drops a payload) whose art is consumed by the others (animals on animal farm).
The song then describes the man again, probably in his later years after he's been on this corporate ladder a while. He's a puppet (nervous messed up marionette) that can't escape this ride he's on (the prison ship).
The song ends with the focus pulling away from this man and seeing the whole society as an ecosystem of dinosaurs... doomed to cannibalize and feed on each other until some force greater than them destroys them. Still, in their minds they are all super-important. The grand scheme of things is much greater than they will ever be.