Winehouse words on English paper

Amy Winehouse co-wrote Love is a Losing Game with Mark Ronson

English students at Cambridge University have been asked to analyse lyrics by singer Amy Winehouse in a final-year exam.

They were told to compare Winehouse's Love is a Losing Game to songs by Bob Dylan, Billie Holiday and 16th century explorer Sir Walter Raleigh.

Winehouse recently won a prestigious Ivor Novello award for the song.

A university spokesman said English students had always been asked to compare writers of different times.

He said the question was "interesting, but not news".

'Best song'

Student newspaper The Cambridge Student said undergraduates were "surprised" to find Winehouse's words on the practical criticism paper.

They were asked to contrast aspects of the pop song with Bob Dylan's Boots Of Spanish Leather, Billie Holiday's Fine And Mellow and Sir Walter Raleigh's As You Came from the Holy Land in an examination question.

Love is a Losing Game, co-written with Mark Ronson, won the award for best song musically and lyrically at the Ivor Novellos last week.

But Winehouse arrived at the ceremony too late to accept the award herself. Her father picked it up on her behalf.

Some of the song's lyrics are:

Though I battled blind
Love is a fate resigned
Memories mar my mind
Love is a fate resigned

Over futile odds
And laughed at by the Gods
And now the final frame
Love is a losing game

Released as a single last year, one critic said the song conjured up "images of fag smoke, empty vodka bottles and smudged mascara" and was "perhaps the most heartbreaking thing she's ever recorded".

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