I think the song has to be seen in a spiritual context. Stevens is certainly mainstreamish, but he packs quite a lot of religious punch. On the surface the song can certainly be interpreted as a mans search for the 'one and only'. A deeper interpretation, which I think is called for, could propose the human quest for existential meaning and purpose in life, as the songs second theme. Indeed, as suggested above, the 'fancy dancers' are equated with gliding on the surface, but when it comes to the deeper dimensions of human existence (e.g. spirituality, conation, meaning & purpose of it all) they have no answers to offer and leaves the narrator with the impression of their inner emptiness.
Perhaps the song also has an ironic meta-framing - the narrator talks of the others as shallow, but he himself also seeks happiness as something to come from the outside, in the form of his 'hard headed woman'. And then again - perhaps 'hard headed woman' is used as a metaphor for his own search of truth and meaning - sort of like an pop-archetype.
I think the song has to be seen in a spiritual context. Stevens is certainly mainstreamish, but he packs quite a lot of religious punch. On the surface the song can certainly be interpreted as a mans search for the 'one and only'. A deeper interpretation, which I think is called for, could propose the human quest for existential meaning and purpose in life, as the songs second theme. Indeed, as suggested above, the 'fancy dancers' are equated with gliding on the surface, but when it comes to the deeper dimensions of human existence (e.g. spirituality, conation, meaning & purpose of it all) they have no answers to offer and leaves the narrator with the impression of their inner emptiness.
Perhaps the song also has an ironic meta-framing - the narrator talks of the others as shallow, but he himself also seeks happiness as something to come from the outside, in the form of his 'hard headed woman'. And then again - perhaps 'hard headed woman' is used as a metaphor for his own search of truth and meaning - sort of like an pop-archetype.