Derek Stevens is a character played by Dana Carvey on Saturday Night Live.
Appearance[]
He is an English singer/songwriter who meets with his record producers to go over his demo, which they soon discover he has failed to record. He insists, however, that he has written songs and he can play the songs for them live, and when they ask him to do so, he quickly makes up a song called "The Lady I Know." He then sits at the piano and begins sloppily faking his way through the song, which ultimately becomes an endless refrain of the chorus, "Choppin' broccoli" in various vocal styles and intonations. Upon hearing it, the producers appear to be awestruck by his lyrics, and are ecstatic about recording the song.
This song was originally in a Dana Carvey stand-up comedy routine about the vapidness of popular music.
Stevens returns in a later sketch, in which his producers try to convince him that his premature death might help the sales of his album. A fearful Stevens responds by hyping a new song, with the same tune as "The Lady I Know", but featuring different, though equally repetitive, lyrics and a similar endless refrain ("My pretty little lady! My pretty little gir-rl!") The producers are unimpressed.