Waxing Lyrical

There’s nothing much wrong with Miss Amy Winehouse’s lyrics that any self-respecting hack from Tin Pan Alley would turn his or her nose up at. But why an eminent university would have thought that they were worth including as an exam question is another matter.
The danger is that, by including them in the same breath as Sir Walter Ralegh, her fans might be deluded into thinking that she was a great lyricist.
Her work rates comfortably with the average puerile contributions of the majority of writers of popular songs, but why the university should have selected hers in preference to some of the legendary great lyricists, beats me.
You only have to compare her rather pointless ditty with the inspired output of Lorenz Hart, Cole Porter, Allan Jay Lerner, Noel Coward and hundreds of others to see the paucity of talent in her offering.
It does, of course, make the answer to the exam question pretty easy.
Sir Walter gets eight out of ten.
Miss Winehouse, one out of ten. Should try harder.