Arabic version: عائلة روب هيرست تُكمل كتابه الأخير عن كتابة الأغاني

According to ABC News, Rob Hirst’s daughter, Lex Hirst, helped complete the Midnight Oil drummer and songwriter’s final book after his death from pancreatic cancer in January. Hirst had spent the previous two years working on World is Almost at Peace: A Lifetime of Songwriting for Midnight Oil and More, completing about 85 per cent of the manuscript before he died.

Lex Hirst returned to the project about a month later, describing the work as difficult but cathartic while grieving. She said reading the manuscript from beginning to end preserved her father’s voice and helped her engage with small parts of him that she feared losing. Family, friends and fellow musicians assisted in filling gaps left in the manuscript.

The book follows Hirst’s songwriting life track by track through his completed and recorded catalogue. It covers his early attempts as a lyricist, his work on Midnight Oil songs including Beds Are Burning and Read About It, and projects involving Ghostwriters and Backsliders. Lex Hirst said the book traces shifts from his early writing through Midnight Oil’s politicisation, more personal songs and the final album he worked on while ill.

Hirst began the project after encouragement from his wife, Lesley Holland. Lex Hirst said the book reflected his desire to keep working and to claim his identity as a writer, particularly as illness limited how much he could play drums. The family followed his instruction not to make it a drumming book.

World is Almost at Peace includes chronological songs, notes and artefacts, along with colour-coded details identifying individual lyrics, lines and words written by Hirst, Jim Moginie or Pete Garrett. It concludes with Hirst’s final song, An Upwelling, which was unfinished and never recorded. Lex Hirst said he left chords with the song because he liked the idea of someone else taking it into the world.