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I’m not much of a fan-boy. If they held the Grammys in my backyard, I’d draw the curtains. But I have to admit to a lifelong obsession with Canadian rockers Rush that borders on the unhealthy.

I have never understood the outbursts of mass hysteria that have greeted the death of a celebrity that those grieving have never met.

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Yet I confess to finding myself moved to tears by the death of drummer Neil Peart, from brain cancer at the age of 67.

To explain — those three mild-mannered Canadians changed my life. I grew up in small-town Scotland, aspiring to own luggage with a YYZ tag on it (the title of a mind-blowing instrumental on the classic Moving Pictures album) or to visit places that had inspired my heroes to write their song Subdivisions — exotically named towns like Mississauga and Etobicoke. It is not an exaggeration to say that when I came to North America to go to graduate school, I ended up in Canada because of Rush.