Assigned with in-house producers Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, [1] Gärdestad released his first single, "Hela världen runt," in late 1971 and worked closely with the four members of ABBA to create his debut album Undringar (1972).

As Polar Music's best-selling solo artist (aside from ABBA), he continued to work with the group members throughout the 1970s,[2] releasing three more albums Ted (1973), Upptåg (1974) and Franska Kort (1976), which were moderately successful.

[1] In 1971, 15-year-old Ted and his eight-year-older brother Kenneth Gärdestad contacted the record company Polar Music and showed an audition tape to Stig "Stikkan" Anderson,[13] who would later manage the pop group ABBA.

The follow-up single, an acoustic ballad "Jag vill ha en egen måne" ("I Want a Moon of My Own"), a song he wrote at age 12, brought him to the attention of the Swedish public.

He was prominently featured in teen magazines Starlet, Mitt Livs Novell and Poster, his love life was covered by the national newspapers, he had a fan club, and all of his albums were certificated gold and sold well in the rest of Scandinavia.

Australian pop singer Mark Holden did, however, have a major success in Australia with "Jag ska fånga en ängel" under the title "I Wanna Make You My Lady" in 1976.

In 1976, the label released the album Franska Kort ("French Cards" – an expression for a fairly innocent type of late 19th-century pornography), only partly recorded with Björn and Benny and co-produced by Tretow and Janne Schaffer.

The album produced hit singles "Angela," "Chapeau-Claque" (French for top hat), "När showen är slut" ("When the Show is Over") and "Klöversnoa," a novelty folk dance parody with Benny and Gärdestad playing accordion.

Blue Virgin Isles was released worldwide in late 1978 on Epic Records, and produced the singles "Take Me Back To Hollywood," an English version of "Chapeau-Clacque," and "Love, You're Making All The Fools".

[16][4] In early 1979, Ted and Kenneth Gärdestad had a fourth attempt at Melodifestivalen and won with the song "Satellit," a mid-tempo rock track whose arrangement bore resemblances to Toto's 1978 hit "Hold the Line".

[16][18] After an unsuccessful return to Melodifestivalen in 1980, with "Låt solen värma dig" ("Let the Sun Warm You") with then girlfriend Annica Boller and disappointing sales of his 1981 album Stormvarning (#31, 2 weeks)—which was internationally released as I'd Rather Write a Symphony on the Polydor label in a few countries and equally overlooked—Gärdestad left the music scene at the age of 25.

In June 1983, one month before his second child with actress Ann Zacharias was born, he unexpectedly left his family and friends and moved to the movement's headquarters in Oregon, United States.

Three years later, after Rajneesh was convicted for immigration fraud, tax evasion, embezzlement of his disciples' funds and bioterror attacks on the citizens of The Dalles and subsequently deported from the US, Gärdestad's family persuaded him to move back to Sweden.

Early that year he embarked on his first tour since 1978 and played a series of dates with Plura Jonsson, Tove Naess, Totta Näslund and Dan Hylander, and received overall positive reviews from the press.

All of Gärdestad's albums from the 1970s and early 1980s, with the exception of Blue Virgin Isles, were re-released on CD by Polar, and a generation of Swedes who grew up listening to his music now re-discovered and re-evaluated his back catalogue as adults.

His body of work has since come to be regarded as a national treasure as important as those of Evert Taube, Carl Michael Bellman and Cornelis Vreeswijk both by fans and Swedish music critics.

[16][23] The following year, Gärdestad released a full-length album of new material titled Äntligen på väg (Finally on the Road) on Polar, which was produced by the longtime friend Janne Schaffer.

The album included contributions from ABBA drummer Per Lindvall, Björn J:son Lindh, Gladys del Pilar and Marie Bergman, and other renowned Swedish musicians.

[27][25][28] Musically Ted's songs combined the heritage of the Scandinavian acoustic and narrative visa tradition with influences from the British-American singer-songwriter wave of the late 1960s and early 1970s, but his repertoire also included a wide variety of genre exercises including pastiches of swing, jazz, ragtime, boogie-woogie, reggae, country and western, French chanson, Swedish folk music as well as contemporary English and American pop, rock, soul and R&B.

Following musicians and songwriters of their generation, both brothers were fans of the Beatles and influenced by the fact that John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote their own material and played it themselves, which was revolutionary at that time.

Lyrically the songs reflected the world of an average young teenager, no longer a child but not yet an adult, and his personal development; the dreams, hopes and desires as well as the fears and frustrations, infatuation and rejection ("När du kommer," "Räcker jag till"), existential ponderings ("Universum," "Snurra du min värld," "Gitarren och jag") alongside typical adolescent fantasies and daydreams of historical figures such as the Vikings ("Viking"), "Buffalo Bill," Goliath ("Goliat från Gat") or becoming a superhero like "The Phantom" ("Fantomen"), and naturally, as with most teenagers, also playful hints at an increased interest in the opposite sex.

Like sound engineer Michael B. Tretow, Ted was also known for his prankish sense of humour; he was a big fan of Monty Python's Flying Circus and loved practical jokes, which also is reflected in the lyrics in the form of puns, word play, and double entendres.

[citation needed] Also in 2005, Gärdestad's brother Kenneth wrote a biography about Ted's life called Jag vill ha en egen måne, named after his breakthrough single.

[16] In 2000, "Jag vill ha en egen måne," "Så mycket bättre" and "Come Give Me Love" were featured in Swedish film director Lukas Moodysson's comedy drama Tillsammans (international title: Together).

[16] In 2004, a line-up of Swedish artists headed by Schaffer and including Mats Ronander, J:son Lindh, Jennifer Brown and rapper Dogge Doggelito performed a ten-minute medley of Gärdestad's best-known songs as the interval act of that year's Melodifestivalen, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Ted winning the contest with "Satellit.

Country singer and fellow Eurovision contestant Jill Johnson's acoustic version of Gärdestad's 1973 Melodifestivalen entry "Oh vilken härlig dag" and Helen Sjöholm's recording of "Come Give Me Love" became radio hits and were also issued as singles.

[40] In 2010, the track "Så mycket bättre" from Gärdestad's debut album Undringar was covered by the Swedish stars Lasse Berghagen, Thomas Di Leva, Plura Jonsson of Eldkvarn, Barbro "Lill-Babs" Svensson, Petter, Christer Sandelin and Petra Marklund, and was used as the theme tune to a television reality show of the same name.

[41] This resulted in renewed interest in Gärdestad's back catalogue and his original recording of the song entering the digital singles chart in Sweden in October 2010 – almost four decades after its first release.