...It reminds me Chris Rea & JJ Cale.
I agree with.
About the text.
A premise: that Mark know how to write, I think, is out of the question.
The lyrics of the song, however, appears very thin and repetitive. I see two possible interpretations.
Mark has decided to write a "Radio" song (you know that the simpler songs are successful on the radio); however, given the argument, it seems unlikely.
The other possibility is that the song is deliberately dry and repetitive to give greater effect to his disagreement with what Mark sees as an injustice (or better a stupid behavior). A sort of invective. The posthumous awards have always taste of repair, of missed opportunity.
I prefer
to favor this second interpretation