Songfacts®:

• Written by Janet Jackson's producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, this somber song is about how children have to grow up in a world they didn't create; a world that adults often make a mess of.
  
  It was inspired by a shooting at the Cleveland School in Stockton, California, on January 17, 1989, when a gunman fired 106 shots into the school's playground, killing five children and wounding 29 others before shooting himself. Jam and Lewis saw news reports of the shooting when they came to work at their Flyte Tyme studios in Minneapolis that day to work on Jackson's Rhythm Nation 1814 album.
  
  "It was very heavy on our minds," Jimmy Jam explained. "That's where a song like 'Livin' in a World (They Didn't Make)' fits in. It says that kids aren't responsible for what the adults have done - we felt it would be something ath would be good for Janet to do and she agreed."
• The song is part of Janet Jackson's classic 1989 album Rhythm Nation 1814, the follow-up to her breakthrough album Control from 1986. Both albums were produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who had an easy rapport with Jackson.
  
  Rhythm Nation 1814 has a few songs with powerful messages, which is the bucket "Livin' in a World (They Didn't Make)" fits into. The most prominent of these songs is the title track, which has the added benefit of being a banger. That one was released as a single and was a big hit, but the other six hits from the album weren't message songs - they were lively songs like "Alright" or celebrations of love like "Love Will Never Do (Without You)."