Producer and musician Jon Carin has posted a brief but interesting note on his Facebook page about Maroon's construction.
"The first 30 seconds of the song is just me alone, playing an ambient piece I wrote for a record I was making at the time that happened to be in the same key, but, of course, didn’t come out - instead ending up on a Pink Floyd record."
In his post, a brief but fascinating look at the origins of one of Pink Floyd's finest tracks, Carin traces his contribution to this production back to a small but legendary shop in Staten Island, New York City. That's where Carin purchased the National Resolectric R-1 that fleshes the beginning of the song out, and lays the foundation for the rest of the track.
The National Resolectric R-1 was the guitar of choice for the late Chris Whitley. David Gilmour also owned one, which sold at the 2019 Christie's auction for $81,250 (roughly £58,00). Carin's is part of a very limited edition of the guitar.
Carin purchased his Resolectric R-1 at Staten Island's Mandolin Brothers, whose clients included Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash" according to silive.com and Gothamist. Sadly, the store closed in 2017.
Carin's post adds some important background to the recorded history of one of Pink Floyd's most important tracks - the Grammy-award winning piece was part of the band's The Division Bell album.
In a 1994 Guitar World interview, David Gilmour discussed his contributions, stating he used a Digitech Whammy Pedal, describing it as "a great little unit" and lauding "the fact that it allows you to bend a note a full octave." A large part of Gilmour's guitar work on the track relies on this special effect to create some of its most intricate sounds. He added: "we basically wrote the first version of it the day I got the pedal. I probably took three or four passes at it and took the best bits out of each."
Carin describes the sound he created as 'panning, swirling stuff' that weaves the song together. He details the equipment he used to create the special effects of the Resolectric R-1 in detail on his post, which you can read here.
On the 20th anniversary of The Division Bell, Pink Floyd released a video for the track, directed by Aubrey Powell of Hipgnosis (seen above).
To read Carin's full post, click here. You can follow Jon Carin's work on Facebook and Instagram. You can follow David Gilmour's work on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and at his website, davidgilmour.com. Photo courtesy of Jon Carin Official.