I'll admit it happens with frequency, and it's usually stupid things, or very profound things. The lyrics get to me, mostly. Off the top of my head...
"I wish I knew how it feels to be free" by the late, great Nina Simone, just after she passed away... Innocuous Aaliyah tracks, even ones I would skip over, turned into emotional minefields for me after she died...
Anything by Jorge Cafrune and other South American/Spanish political folklorists (lyrics in Spanish to "Yo soy el dueño de todo"
here -- a song about how working men build palaces while their children sleep in shacks, how their hands "make miracles with wood", yet they have no place to sit, how they have no right to tire... it devastates me when I hear it. I guess the same subject theme is treated in Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Don't look now (it ain't you or me)", which is a fantastic song, lyrically and sonically.)
Albert Ayler's "Ghosts" off the ESP-Disk
Trio, especially, but anytime Albert starts testifyin', really...
"Just another soldier" by the Staple Singers, but probably because it reminds me of a friend dying when we were doing compulsory Austrian army service together...
"Hummingbird", the final track on B.B.King's
Indianola Mississippi Seeds...
John Peel's Tribute Program...
"Kapiti Dream" off Recloose's genius
Cardiology...
Most recently, and it makes me wonder because it's not spiritual at all: Thomas & Dettinger's mix of "Jackpot", off
K.O.O.K. Variationen, the album of Tocotronic remixes.
Dunno, maybe sometimes when you're off guard a phrase or a little melodic hook can absolutely floor you... but it's great to admit these things.