Half-A-Room has been described by Ono as a response to her feeling at the time that "there was a half empty space in my life" as a result of the increasing estrangement of her and her second husband, Anthony Cox. Ono awoke one day and noticed that Cox had not returned from a night out, and so the bed was half empty, and through this realised that there was "a half empty space in my life".

I think of this show as an elephant's tail. ...Life is only half a game. Molecules are always at the verge of half disappearing and half emerging. Somebody said I should also put half-a-person in the show. But we are halves already. It is sad that the air is the only thing we share. No matter how close we get to each other, there is always air between us. It is also nice that we share the air. No matter how far apart we are, the air links us".