For Googoosh, Iran’s most-famous singer, life always has been balancing act of one kind or another.

Axar.az informs, citing AP, it began as a child, performing with her acrobat father who balanced her on a chair atop another chair resting only on his chin. Then later, as an icon of stage and screen during the last years of the shah, her looks and hairstyles were copied by Iranian women who wanted to look more “Googooshi,” a Farsi adjective all her own.

Then came the decades of silence after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, barred from performing, only to return to the stage abroad in 2000. And now, embarking on a farewell tour, she’s adding author as her latest reinvention as her homeland undergoes a societal change yet again.

“I did not realize that all these challenges and struggles were considered a balancing act,” the 75-year-old singer told The Associated Press. “If that is what it means, then yes, I have spent my entire life trying to create and maintain a balance between my personal life and my artistic life.”

“Throughout my life I have almost never been able to plan my future. Everything has simply happened to me,” she said. “We have not controlled our own lives for 47 years. Whatever we planned never happened, and whatever happened was never planned by us. I am no exception, and I expect to continue living this way.”

She added: “Still, I prefer to leave my artistic work for a day when the Islamic Republic no longer exists in my country.

You can read the full interview here.