The Lord's My Shepherd, I'll Not Want
Scottish Psalter · 1650 · tune CRIMOND
Key of F · public domain
Words
He makes me down to lie
In pastures green; He leadeth me
The quiet waters by.
And me to walk doth make
Within the paths of righteousness,
E'en for His own name's sake.
Yet will I fear none ill;
For Thou art with me, and Thy rod
And staff me comfort still.
In presence of my foes;
My head Thou dost with oil anoint,
And my cup overflows.
Shall surely follow me;
And in God's house for evermore
My dwelling place shall be.
The story
This is Psalm 23 with the words rearranged just enough to fit a tune, and nothing else changed. The Scottish Psalter of 1650 was built on a principle that sounds odd now: a congregation should sing scripture, not somebody's thoughts about scripture. So the committee took the psalm, set it in common metre, and stopped. There is no added sentiment anywhere in it. The tune most people know it by, CRIMOND, came much later, from Jessie Seymour Irvine, a parish minister's daughter in Aberdeenshire who wrote it in the 1870s. It is sung at Scottish funerals and Scottish weddings with equal frequency, which tells you something about the psalm itself. The valley and the table are in the same song.
Chords in F
In the app you can move this to any key and it works out the capo for you.
Common questions
Who wrote The Lord's My Shepherd, I'll Not Want? Scottish Psalter wrote the words in 1650.
What tune is it sung to? CRIMOND, set here in the key of F.
What scripture is it built on? Psalm 23.
Is The Lord's My Shepherd, I'll Not Want free to use in church? Yes. The words are public domain, which means any church may sing them, print them in a bulletin, put them on a screen or record them, without asking permission and without paying anyone.
The psalm it came from
The Lord's My Shepherd, I'll Not Want is Psalm 23 set to a tune. The psalm itself is here in full — King James, Berean Standard and Reina-Valera side by side, with a note on what it is doing and where it sits in the book.
Also set from Psalm 23: The King of Love My Shepherd Is (Henry Williams Baker, 1868)
Themes
Comfort · Psalms · Death