The late Midnight Oil drummer and songwriter’s complete lyric catalogue and songwriting insights arrive on 27 October, as his iconic drum kit is celebrated at Hamer Hall.
by Paul Cashmere
Rob Hirst’s final book, World Is Almost At Peace: A Lifetime of Songwriting for Midnight Oil and More, will be published on Tuesday 27 October, bringing together his complete lyric catalogue, notebook pages, unseen photographs and the first detailed account of how many of Midnight Oil’s best-known songs were written.
The hardcover volume arrives nine months after the drummer, songwriter and vocalist died in January at the age of 70 following a lengthy battle with pancreatic cancer.
His daughter Lex Hirst, who served as publisher, has confirmed that her father worked on the project until the end. “At the start of 2026, it became clear Dad wasn’t going to live to see the book’s publication, and he started handing over the remaining pieces to my sisters and I as we sat by his bedside,” she wrote in her publisher’s note. “He was thrilled to be able to hand this final work over to his own personal publisher – to know his words would find their way out into the world even after he left it.”
Over nearly five decades Rob Hirst wrote or co-wrote a string of songs that became part of the Australian soundtrack, among them Beds Are Burning, The Dead Heart, Best of Both Worlds, Kosciusko, King of the Mountain, Read About It and Forgotten Years. For the first time the book places those lyrics in context with early notebook drafts, hand-printed posters, musical ephemera from Midnight Oil’s formative years and previously unseen photographs. Contributions from long-time collaborators including Jim Moginie, Rick Grossman and Dom Turner help frame the songs against the moments and conversations that produced them.
What sets the collection apart is the line-by-line examination of the writing process Rob Hirst shared with Jim Moginie and Peter Garrett. The book opens a window into a partnership that was always carefully guarded, revealing how ideas moved between the three writers and how the finished songs took shape. The result is both an archival document and a working notebook that shows the craft behind the anthems.
The publication date coincides with a special gathering at Hamer Hall in Melbourne.
Midnight Oil fans from around Australia and overseas will mark the book’s release and the public celebration of Rob Hirst’s long-serving Ludwig drum kit, now held by the Australian Performing Arts Collection. The kit, used from the late 1970s through the band’s final shows, was secured for public display through a grassroots fundraising campaign organised by the Powderworkers, the dedicated Midnight Oil fan community.
A lineup of close friends and collaborators will perform on the night, among them Jim Moginie, Rick Grossman, Ash Naylor, Jack Howard, Mick Thomas, Brooke Taylor, Sean Sennett, Nik Rieth, Things of Stone and Wood, Hannah Crofts and Paul Clarke. The evening brings together the people who worked closest with Rob Hirst and the fans who helped keep one of his most personal instruments in public hands.
World Is Almost At Peace is published by Pantera Press, an imprint of Hardie Grant Books. The book stands as both a comprehensive record of a lifetime of songwriting and a carefully assembled memorial to a musician whose words and rhythms helped define a generation of Australian music.
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