Suppose you have just started an RPG with character classes (or jobs, professions, vocations, or whatever the game decides to call them), and you notice that the game has a Bard class. What abilities do you expect a character in that class to have?

Edit: Why the low rating? What's wrong with discussing these sort of things here? (This is a gaming forum, right?)

Light weapons, musical instrument, tumbling, juggling, throwing weapons, charm, speech craft, barter, motivate, disguise, cantrips... you know bard and troubadour stuff.

Going off expectations of 3, 3.5, pathfinder and 5e?

I suppose that's to be expected. But a bard is likely a musician and actor/entertainer, so musical instrument and performance being a minimum. Light/basic weapons sure.

Bard doesn't sound to me like a fighter class of any description, a lore character (other than singing songs, or writing poems), nor do they seem like a jack of all trades.

I can see bard more as a prestige class that can give a lot of bonuses to things, but as a class in general and not basing on my D&D experience, i'd say almost nothing. Monk is another one in D&D that really doesn't fit the name/description/expectations of what it actually gives you.

Bards are the best class that ever was or will be.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ohk5Swy-04

I like the idea of bards being able to throw some punches (Scott Pilgrim vs The World spoiler, I guess?), and I'm hopeful I see something like that in every new game with bards/bard-esque characters, even though it usually doesn't happen =/

A bard should generally have social skills, and, beyond that, fill a "jack of all, master of none" role. A little magic (of different styles), a little combat, a little armor, a little nature. Generally a flex character. They're often in the spotlight out of combat, and patching holes and doing wide, small party buffs/enemy debuffs.

Final Fantasy's Red Mage is a reskinned Bard to me. (Even more than the games that have 'bard' themselves usually.)

Related: Knights of Badassdom has one of the best cinematic renditions of a "musicist" ["music as magic"]. He's probably a bard overall with lots of dabbling, but it's been a while since I saw the film to get specifics.

Raining Blood?

Thing is, that's at odds at how I see the Bard.

I see the Bard as a specialist, using bard songs to support their allies, and doing so most of the time. Such a bard wouldn't usually be able to burn enemies with fire (Bard's Tale series and AD&D 2e not withstanding), but might have a healing ability (that would likely be weak, but free or cheap to use and affecting the entire party). My conception of Bard is more like the actual Bard job in Final Fantasy 5 (and 3D versions of 3 and 4, which made the job actually useful; even a spoony bard can be a useful party member now).

Yep, it is. Bard is a very disjoint class with two discrete interpretations: the generalist, and the "magic from music". Not too many other classes have that dichotomy to them. Most games nowadays have a fusion of the two, but I still see plenty of room for them to be distinct classes.

Tangent: Did you ever read that article about origin and evolution of the D&D monk, and how it also is kind of an atypical meanderer across editions of D&D, with often wildly changing power sets? I wonder if someone wrote similar for bard.

2e is the version of AD&D that I grew up on, and in that version, the bard was neither; there wasn't any "magic from music" aspect, and the lack of healing abilities of any sort meant the Bard could not be a generalist.

(I'm not sure if I've read that article, but I could mention that in 2e the Monk was non-existent; I'm more familiar with the Bard's Tale and Final Fantasy 1 Monks that, at high levels, could dish out huge amounts of damage.)

I'm thinking more in terms of spells, that he/she could master 'soothing whispers' healing spells; charm spells (for making characters want to aid you); a variety of sound attacks like 'hell scream', 'mind cry', et cetera. At higher levels, perhaps the ability to create rare items by singing them into being.

the ability to play a musical instrument, bonus point if singing as well.

Don't forget 'rebel yell'.