Nana Mouskouri is celebrating her 80th birthday on October 13 with a marathon tour that began a month before her actual date of birth and six years after she “retired” from the music business altogether. Her farewell tour back in 2008 proved so successful that there was a DVD release. The only problem is that soon after tour, the iconic singer with the straight black hair and the trademark glasses decided that retirement was not for her.

“I was trying to find an excuse to come back for a while, so my 80th birthday was my reason,” she told BBC Radio 4. The crippling  economic crisis in Greece had something to do with her decision to just keep singing. Ms. Merkouri is no stranger to singing in the face of adversity as in youth her family had been forced to sell everything, including the beds for food, after the civil war that followed the German Occupation.

Back then, music gave Mouskouri the “courage to exist”. Both she and her sister, Jenny, won places at the Athens Conservatory to study singing.

Greek austerity brought all those memories back. Early on in the crisis, Ms. Merkouri – in an unprecedented move – had offered the country her MEP pension in a bid to help the country tackle its massive debt.

The beauty about Mouskouri is her unswerving desire to offer hope as a singer, UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, MEP, and now senior citizen who keeps on singing at a time when others no longer have the courage to continue.

She has recorded songs in many languages: Greek, French, English, German, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, Welsh, Mandarin Chinese, Corsican and Turkish. After a singing career that has spanned decades she has cult status and has earned her reputation as one of the world’s most famous singer, having sold more than 300 million records worldwide.

Her birthday concert is at the Laeszhalle in Hamburg, Germany, on Monday, as part of a tour runs through to January 24,2015, with the final concert in France.