Popular ballad that is about mother meeting her ruin (7)
I believe the answer is:
imagine
'ruin' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are verbs in their base form, I can't understand how one could define the other.
'popular ballad that is about mother meeting her' is the wordplay.
I cannot really see how this works, but
'popular' could be 'in' ('in' can mean trendy) and 'in' is found in the answer.
'about' could be 'a' (abbreviation in Chambers) and 'a' is located in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for imagine that I've seen before include "Form a mental picture" , "Devise" , "Classic Lennon song" , "Assume" , "Suspect" .)