"Intruder" is a song written and performed by English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel

Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...

. It starts off his third eponymous album with the description of a break-in told through the eyes of the burglar, or "Intruder". The phrase "I like...." is repeated throughout the song, indicating that the burglar was not pressured into his actions, but instead intrudes homes simply for the thrill of committing a crime.

Like the rest of the album, this song features the "gated drum

Gated reverb

Gated reverb is an audio processing technique that is applied to recordings of drums to make the drums sound powerful and "punchy," while keeping the overall mix clean and transparent-sounding...

" sound created by Hugh Padgham

Hugh Padgham

Hugh Padgham is a British record producer. He has won many awards, including four Grammys, with Producer of the Year and Engineer of the Year. A 1992 poll in Mix magazine voted him one of the world's Top Ten Most Influential Producers....

 and Phil Collins

Phil Collins

Philip David Charles "Phil" Collins, LVO is an English singer-songwriter, drummer, pianist and actor best known as a drummer and vocalist for British progressive rock group Genesis and as a solo artist....

 and contains no cymbals. In fact, the song was built upon a simple drum pattern that Gabriel asked Phil to play while he wrote the words and the music. In accordance with Gabriel's penchant for unusual instrumentation, it features a xylophone

Xylophone

The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...

 solo about halfway through the song. Also, twice a grating sound can be heard, similar to cracking glass, probably made by scraping a guitar pick up and down the lower (bass) strings of an acoustic guitar.

The song was often performed live by Gabriel in the early '80s, and is included on his first live album

Live album

A live album is a recording consisting of material recorded during stage performances using remote recording techniques, commonly contrasted with a studio album...

, Plays Live

Plays Live (album)

Plays Live is the first live and fifth album overall released by British rock musician Peter Gabriel. This album was originally released as a double album and longplay cassette, with sixteen songs and a running time of over 80 minutes...

. In 1992, the band Primus

Primus (band)

Primus is an American rock band based in San Francisco, California, currently composed of bassist/vocalist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry "Ler" LaLonde and drummer Jay Lane. Primus originally formed in 1984 with Claypool and guitarist Todd Huth, later joined by Lane, though the latter two departed...

 recorded a cover of the song and included it as the opening track to their Miscellaneous Debris

Miscellaneous Debris

-Credits:*Les Claypool - bass guitar, vocals*Larry "Ler" LaLonde - guitars, synthesizer*Tim "Herb" Alexander - drums, percussion-Singles:Billboard...

EP.