Songfacts®:

• This was the only song on the Rhythm Nation album written entirely by Jackson. It was produced by guitarist Jellybean Johnson, who also performed on the track.
  
  The song finds Janet warning her bad-boy boyfriend that he needs to shift his priorities before he loses both her and his life. Two superstitions/folk tales come into play on the track: cats having nine lives and black cats being a sign of bad luck. Janet sees her man as someone whose lives are quickly running out, and also a negative influence on her.
• Although she didn't win the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance with this song (she lost to Alannah Myles for "Black Velvet"), Janet became the first artist to earn nominations across Pop, Dance, Rock, Rap, and R&B categories when "Black Cat" was nominated.
• "Black Cat" is the only song on the Rhythm Nation 1814 that wasn't produced by Janet Jackson's dynamic duo of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who first teamed up with her on her 1986 album Control, the predecessor to Rhythm Nation 1814. They still influenced this song, though. Jimmy Jam encouraged Jackson to tap into her rock side when he and Lewis worked with her to record it at their Flyte Tyme studios in Minneapolis.
  
  "One night I told her I wanted her to sound like a rock and roll queen on it - she usually uses one of her other voices to sing R&B funk," he explained. "This, you wanted to be funky, but more rocked out. That was what I was trying to get her to do, and she did it in one or two takes."
• Jackson employed a real black leopard during her concerts until some fans became concerned about the cat's welfare. She announced: "While the illusion with the cat was appreciated by most of the audience, if it caused even a few people to worry about the safety of the cat, it's not worth keeping it."
  
  But there was really nothing to worry about, she added. "I know how well the animal was treated by its trainer and my production staff. I love animals and would never do any harm, or allow anyone to do any harm, to one. Rather than let my fans worry, I would rather do without the cat."
  
  For a more frightening black cat mishap, check out the Songfacts for Hall & Oates' "Maneater."
• This song was featured in the 1991 action-thriller The Taking of Beverly Hills.
• "Black Cat" plays in the Rhythm Nation 1814 short film, which Jackson made to accompany the album. She doesn't perform it in the film, but we hear it in the warehouse where most of the action takes place. The film debuted on MTV and sold over 200,000 copies on home video.
• "Black Cat" was the sixth single from the Rhythm Nation 1814 album. Of those first five, two of them went to #1 ("Miss You Much," "Escapade") and the other three charted high:
  
  "Rhythm Nation" - #2
  "Alright" - #4
  "Come Back to Me" - #2
  
  "Black Cat" hit the top spot, and the next single, "Love Will Never Do (Without You)," did too. That's four #1 hits and seven Top 5 singles from one album! Her brother Michael had five #1 singles from his 1987 album Bad, but Janet was the first with seven Top 5s.
• Janet Jackson was a huge star on MTV thanks to her highly choreographed, eye-catching videos. Those videos took a long time to make, and she didn't have time to put one together for "Black Cat," so instead, director Wayne Isham was hired to shoot footage at her April 5, 1990 concert in Bloomington, Minnesota, which he used to put the video together. The black panther used in the stage show got plenty of camera time.