It’s been four years since Chuck Brodsky’s last studio album, “Tulips for Lunch” (he released the 2-CD live album, “Two Sets,” in 2008). But Brodksy fans who are champing at the bit for their next “fix” from this talented singer-songwriter won’t have to wait much longer: he presently has enough new songs written for two albums.

Right now, he’s just deciding which record to do first — either another recording of baseball songs (which would be his second, after “The Baseball Ballads” in ’02), or a more wide-ranging album of songs that “are all over the map,” in terms of subject matter, says Brodsky.

“Hopefully, I’ll be going into the studio in December, but I’m still trying to nail down the dates with my producer, JP Cormier, in Cape Breton,” says Brodsky, who comes to the Green Wood Coffee House on Friday. “I may just record all of the songs, for both albums, while I’m up there, and then decide after that which album I’ll put out first.”

Whichever one he chooses to release first, it will likely be released in the spring, he says — “and if it’s the baseball album, it’ll be out by Opening Day.”

The “other” album will be his usual mix of finely detailed story songs, his sardonically funny social commentaries and his oft-poignant tales that probe the human condition.

One new song, says Brodsky, tells the true story of a little Jewish girl, during World War II, whose mother cut off her braids, “so the Nazis couldn’t get their hands on them” in the event the family was sent to a concentration camp.“ The mother gave the braids to a neighbor to hide. The girl and her family didn’t survive the Holocaust, except for one brother. Later, the brother went back to the neighbor to see if she still had the braids — "and the neighbor had faithfully kept them,” hoping that one day, someone from the family would come back for them, says Brodsky soberly.

Another song, “A Man Out of Time, A Man Out of Place,” is about the high-speed electronic age, and a man who “is either too old or too stubborn” to learn how to use 21st Century electronic gadgets and technology — “so, he can’t participate” in all of the high-tech communication that takes place via smart phones, e-mail, social networking sites, etc.

And while Brodsky is known for his social-commentary songs, he writes them in a way that avoids directly taking on or skewering a particular political party or philosophy. “I have fans who are conservatives, just like I have fans who are liberals, so I am not out to make people uncomfortable if they’re at one of my live shows,” says Brodsky by phone from a tour stop in Atlanta.

Brodsky says he’s drawn to writing social critiques because “I’m just tired of all the bull---t. “I want to write about real things that have substance. I’m not a pop singer — I’m more of a troubadour. And my lyrics are something I take great pride in, and I mean to say something in my songs. If it doesn’t say something, there’s no point in writing it, and no reason for it to exist.”

One of Brodsky’s earliest songs that commented on societal breakdown was the darkly amusing “Blow ‘em Away,” which appeared on his 1995 debut album, “A Fingerpainter’s Murals,” and was subsequently recorded by “probably 30 or 40” other artists that Brodsky is aware of. The song was about road rage — but he actually wrote it 10 years earlier, before anyone was using that term.

It was inspired by an angry encounter between two other drivers, which he witnessed while working as a delivery driver in San Francisco, when he was just in his mid-20s. “I decided to write it in a tongue-in-cheek way, to sort of poke fun at what our society had become."

Other Brodsky songs have given us glimpses into the lives of characters like migrant fruit pickers, a clown, “the Goat Man,” a farmer who is losing his land and a developmentally disabled man. And, of course, the range of odd characters from the world of baseball.

Brodsky didn’t plan to become known as a writer of baseball songs. He started out by writing just one — “Lefty,” about a washed-up pitcher trying to hang on to the game he loves. That song also appeared on his ’95 debut.

“I was actually shy about singing that first baseball song, because I thought people would find sports songs to be a bit trite, but I sang it around a campfire one night, and got a lot of good feedback, and then it got a lot of attention after I recorded it,” recalls Brodsky. “So people starting sending me baseball stories, and I began tracking other stories on my own, and soon I had enough ideas for a whole album’s worth.”

One of the first songs Brodsky ever wrote — the tender and uplifting “We Are Each Others’ Angels” — is also among those most beloved by his fans. He wrote it way back in ’81, before he’d started his career as a performer, and it’s the “oldest” song of his that he still performs live. “Angels” has also been covered by many singers, including Katie Geddes, who books and presents the Green Wood concerts — and who chose that song to be the title track of her own CD, which she released this past summer.

“I didn’t know what I had with that one, except that I knew I liked it,” reflects Brodsky. “It wasn’t until later that a lot of people began telling me how special it was to them. I wasn’t prepared for how deeply it would touch people. And Katie’s version is beautiful — of all of the covers of that song that I have heard, it’s my favorite.”

Kevin Ransom is a free-lance writer who covers music for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at KevinRansom10@aol.com.

Chuck Brodsky performing "We Are Each Other's Angels" earlier this year: