Canteloube's "Chants d'Auvergne" are an extraordinary musical compilation of an extraordinary musical culture. The Auvergne region was subject to many cultural influences, including Celtic, Roman, and Moorish, as well as later European influences, and this shows in both language and music. Canteloube wished to preserve the music and language of the folk traditions in the Auvergne, but wished to preserve them in a living, musical form, rather than in scholarly notations in bound volumes. The results are the five series that he published, between 1923 and 1955. As an arranger, his own touch and musical influences are clear, but he found this appropriate to the way that folk music evolves through the influences that it meets—much the way that the music he arranged was influenced by the many cultures it encountered. Bailero is from the first book, and is perhaps the best known. In this simple, pastoral song, a shepherd and a girl call to one another across the stream that divides them. The verses end with the refrain "bailero, " a common element in many Auvergne songs (equivalent to the "wally, wally, " or "fa la la" refrains in some English songs). The instruments evoke the sounds of nature, using winds and the flute, especially, in a way that seems to be a fore-runner of New Age music.

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