John Charles Kenneth Gärdestad (May 9, 1948 – March 3, 2018) was a Swedish songwriter and architect.

Gärdestad was active in the music industry from 1971 to his death in 2018. He is best known for writing the lyrics for his younger brother, Ted Gärdestad, but has also wrote songs for other Swedish artists like Lena Andersson and Agnetha Fältskog.

He has also competed in Melodifestivalen six times as a songwriter, first time in 1973 with “Oh, vilken härlig da’” and last time in 2010 with “Hur kan jag tro på kärlek”.

After his brother’s death in 1997, Gärdestad started to lecture and educate others on psychological illness’. In 2005, Gärdestad together with journalist Keijo Liimatainen, wrote the book “Jag vill ha en egen måne: bok om Ted Gärdestad”.

In early 2018, Gärdestad won the honorary Grammis award with the motivation [Translated from Swedish]:

Like few others has he done beautiful and general poetry of everyday musings. He found his own way to use simple, but very effective words on things and events which for most people just quickly flickers by and then is forgotten. With the start in the 70s in a boy-room in a house some miles north of Stockholm he wrote lyrics that decades later are soft cornerstones in our Swedish pop and poetry treasure and recognized by everyone – de är evighetens hopp*. For his many-year stakes in Swedish music-life and his wonderful lyrics to his brother Ted goes 2018’s Grammis honorary price to Kenneth Gärdestad.

*Translated to “for the hope of eternity”, a reference to his song “Himlen är oskyldigt blå”.

Kenneth passed away on March 3rd 2018, from pneumonia (which was caused by influenza), while still suffering from skin cancer and lymphoma.

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