Rico Blanco's Song Tribute To Covid-19 Frontliners

Rico Blanco has released his first solo single in four years after quietly retiring from the music industry late 2016. Released under Sony Music Philippines, This Too Shall Pass is his song tribute to the country’s “unsung heroes and frontliners” in the ongoing fight against the pandemic.

- Nathalie Tomada

With equal measures of upbeat and downbeat, inspiration and reflection, the song has the hallmarks of Rico’s gift for anthemic songwriting.

In a recent Zoom interview, the rock star candidly talked about the challenges of being creative amid the COVID-19 situation. He acknowledged that the song, which took him two weeks to complete, is easily the hardest to produce.

Despite having his own recording studio at home, living and being quarantined alone didn’t exactly give him the most conducive environment for music-making.

“This is the hardest song to produce. This is more because of my domestic situation because I’m quarantined alone. I have my challenges here at home which, of course, in the light of the entire global situation, I’d like to think I’m really in a more comfortable situation than many out there. But it’s not the most comfortable of situations in terms of my entire body of work. This is the most difficult situation to produce a song in,” the singer-songwriter opened up.

Like many others, Rico also had to concern himself with other (non-musical) things such as checking on his family in Laguna and taking care of his team and other businesses. “Yung main concern ko was survival,” he admitted.