It begins in a Texas graveyard, with a casket wrapped entirely in silver duct tape and a small group of ragged mourners. Later, in the dead of night, a band of musicians led by Townes Van Zandt returned with shovels to dig up their friend. That friend was Blaze Foley, the brilliant, self-destructive songwriter known as the Duct Tape Messiah.

This episode traces the strange, tragic, and beautiful life of one of country's great underground writers: the duct-taped persona, the songs later embraced by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, the chaos and poverty that shadowed him, and the violent end that turned a cult figure into a legend. It is a story about genius lived on the margins.

• The duct-taped casket and the grave dug up by Townes Van Zandt
• The Duct Tape Messiah persona and cult mystique
• Songs later embraced by Mer ...