Before you can start writing your essay, you first need to do a close reading of your song's lyrics.  I suggest printing out a copy so that you can make notes (also called annotating the text).  Remember that your purpose with the essay is to show how the artist set about persuading their listeners.  That's what you need to be looking for as you read the lyrics. Since you will be including information from secondary sources and from the song itself, you also need to be sure you know how to smoothly integrate that material into your paper.  This process is called framing.  Please review "Steps to Frame a Quote" and "Framing Material from a Source."