ATHENS – Prolific lyricist Spyros Giatras has passed away at the age of 77. Giatras wrote some of the most memorable lyrics for the great hit songs of several of the best-known artists in Greek popular music including Stratos Dionysiou, Tolis Voskopoulos, Yiannis Parios, Themis Adamantidis, Stamatis Gonidis, Marinella, Dimitris Kontolazos, Antipas, Vasilis Karras, Notis Sfakianakis, Paola, Konstantinos Argyros, and Nikos Economopoulos, among many others.

Giatras was born in Athens and then immigrated with his family to South Africa where they lived for many years. When he returned to Greece, at the age of 27, he was a qualified optician, a profession he practiced with great love and zeal without interruption throughout his life.

Among the hits that feature his lyrics, An Den Eixa kai Sena (If I Didn’t Have You), became a huge success for Parios, selling one hundred thousand records and achieving platinum status the first day it was released, according to Giatras in a past interview cited by Mykonos Ticker on April 19.