Cyndi Lauper Gets Real About Her Aging Philosophy: 'It F---ing Sucks' but the 'Trick Is Not to Get Too Decrepit' (Exclusive)

The hilariously candid Cyndi Lauper isn't one to mince words — especially when it comes to aging.

"It f-ing sucks. Like in 'Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,' you could even say it blows!" she tells PEOPLE with a laugh.

The pop icon, 74, who is about to embark on her Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Farewell Tour , says that despite not enjoying the growing older process, she does her best to stay in shape and stave off feeling old.

"What you need to do is take care of yourself," says the singer, who first rose to fame with the 1983 release of her debut album She's So Unusual when she was 30.

"That's the major thing. I try to force myself to do something — the bike, the walking, the weights, the yoga. Yoga's great, because it just puts you in a zone mentally. But who wants to get old and decrepit? Nobody! But the trick is, I guess, not to get too decrepit."

Last June, the singer told PEOPLE that she's never been excited about getting older:

"One year, when I was 38, I remember back then I wasn't going to get up or talk to anybody," Lauper said at the time.

"Even at 30, [producer] Rick Chertoff told me, 'Don't be ridiculous. Life starts at 30. Get up, and come on now. We're going out to eat.' So, I'm just going to have to get over it [this year]," she said.

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Lauper's upcoming tour kicks off on Oct. 24 in Detroit and will play in arenas around the country before ending in Europe in late February. Lauper says she's thrilled to take her show on the road and is especially excited about a big arena tour since she'd only ever done one before.

"I was an opener for other acts at arenas, then I got to do one big tour for myself," she tells PEOPLE.

"Then I got pregnant with my son [Declyn, now 26], and I was worried I couldn't do a whole show, so I went back to being an opener again. So watch out, kids, once an opener, always an opener!"

Still, Lauper doesn't regret anything from her past. "It feels like a million years ago," Lauper says of her '80s roots, when she was an MTV staple with hits like "She-Bop," "Time After Time," "I Drove All Night" and, of course, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun."

"I never tried to live in the past because I know that everything changes in the world and in your life," she says. "There are so many different chapters that not being able to open a new one is criminal."

For more from Cyndi Lauper, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands everywhere Friday.