Mosaic in Christ the King church, Shanghai.
Photo (c) Fayhoo. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
Today’s hymn from Sing Praise is “Because the Lord is my shepherd,” by Christopher Walker. It’s a setting of Psalm 23, which has probably had more musical arrangements than any other. Its promises of God giving us safety, rest, refreshment and joy have brought comfort to countless believers down the centuries. There’s also perhaps a nod to Psalm 139 (which we will look at in tomorrow’s song) in the line “this joy fills me with gladness; it is too much to bear”.
What makes this setting different from many others of Psalm 23 is its refrain, which is not taken directly from the original: “I want to follow you always, just to follow my friend”. In this nice little twist, the ‘shepherd’ looking after the flock where they are in the green pasture becomes the ‘friend’ who is always on the move, and whom we follow, not because we are obliged to, or selfishly in return for the promise of food and water, but just because he is our friend. The green pastures and quiet streams will be found along the way, but so also will be the enemies from whom he promises to save us.
Although Stephen hadn’t set this hymn for a day when Psalm 23 was set for Morning Prayer, he had (by chance?) set it on the day when we were reading Ezekiel 34 on the subject of how the leaders of Israel had been such poor shepherds of the people, and how God said he would himself be their shepherd – so it could hardly have been more appropriate!
Like many of Christopher Walker’s hymns, I find this one inspiring and frustrating at the same time. It has a catchy tune, it is faithful to the biblical text, and as Stephen says it has an engaging chorus line which provokes thought and evokes the personal. It is memorable enough to stay in the mind, and it deserves to become part of the repertoire. But there is no rhyme: Christopher has followed the text of the Living Bible, but in my opinion rhyme is a fundamental part of what the ear expects in a song, and its lack is a definite minus. The music as written has rather odd changes of time-signature, and these come across to me as mistakes rather than artistry: the overall structure of the piece doesn’t come in the regular beats which the ear expects. (So I rewrote the rhythm of the piece in these places.)
As for other hymns in this book, I lament the failure to set the whole hymn out on a double-page spread, but instead to have an awkward page-turn. Surely it would be possible to set the music out on two staves instead of three, as the melody line is practically always the same as the top of the right-hand piano part; and to omit the introduction and coda accompaniments, which are fine but not the essence of the piece.