Just Tell Them Tat You Saw Me sheet music cover, 1894
The pattern
This still is filed under Lettered cover hook.
Define
The cover is the hook, and the hook is lettering: a title treated as an image.
Mechanism
Type as bait. The words are drawn so they stop the hand before the contents are known.
Verdict
A journal, book, or issue must sell itself on a rack or a feed
Why it works
The cover is built on a gap. The two figures are drawn in the same hand, on the same white islands, but with a wedge of empty ground between them, which stages the song's situation before a note is played. The title is set as overheard speech, not as a label, so the buyer has to supply the missing context and is already inside the story. Reversing white on a dark field was cheap single-colour printing that still bought contrast on a crowded counter rack.
Steal this when
Use this when the name of the thing is a line someone would actually say and the emotion is in what is left out. Set the phrase as speech, stage two elements with a deliberate gap between them, and let the buyer close it.