47.93Apply it to “Happy Birthday”

This may be more useful than putting it into yet another odd meter.

Keep:

4/4 throughout.

Phrase 1

ordinary placement.

The listener learns the melody.

Phrase 2

same melody with 3+3+2 accompaniment.

Phrase 3

climactic melody fragments displaced by one eighth and allowed to cross barlines.

Phrase 4

begin rhythmically ambiguous.

Then final melody note and tonic arrive strongly on beat 1.

The transformation comes not from changing meter but from destabilizing and restoring the listener's relationship to the meter.