The Famous Tay Whale

The poem narrates the story of the whale's arrival ("’Twas in the month of December, and in the year 1883, That a monster whale came to Dundee,"), hunt ("And they laughed and grinned just like wild baboons, While they fired at him their sharp harpoons"), and eventual demise, capture, and exhibition.

Paul Godfrey described McGonagall on the strength of the Tay Whale and other verse as "the worst poet in the English language".

[3] The poet and essayist Hugh MacDiarmid wrote of the Tay Whale that "what this [the verses about John Wood and the Tay Whale] amounts to, of course, is simply what quite uneducated and stupid people—the two adjectives by no means necessarily go together, for many uneducated people have great vitality and a raciness of utterance altogether lacking here—would produce if asked to recount something they had read in a newspaper.

"[4] MacDiarmid continued that "in their retailings of, or comments upon, such matters, hoi polloi would also reflect their personal feelings, as is done here, by the tritest of emotional exclamations.

The premiere performance of this work – scored for orchestra, foghorn, espresso coffee machine and narrator – took place at the second of the humorous[5] composer Gerard Hoffnung's music festivals, with Edith Evans in the role of the narrator.