The Soundtrack of Rebellion: Greil Marcus and Robert Scheer on Rock, Politics, and the Meaning of Freedom

Intro:

Welcome to Scheer Intelligence, where the real intelligence comes from our guests. Today, Robert Scheer sits down with legendary cultural critic Greil Marcus—called by The Washington Post “our greatest cultural critic”—to explore how rock and roll became the pulse of political and personal liberation in America.

From the streets of Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement to the birth of Rolling Stone magazine, Marcus and Scheer trace the intertwined history of music and resistance—how the Beatles, Dylan, and Lennon didn’t just soundtrack an era, but gave voice to its rebellion.

It’s a rare conversation between two thinkers shaped by the same storms—war, protest, and art—and still asking the same question: can truth survive in a world that insists on selling it back to us?