'You're the cutest Jailbird I ever did see'????

Well, you know what they say about prison -- if you drop the soap in the shower, don't bend over!

Glad to see I was not the only one concerned by this line.

Just a thought: since the party took place in a county jail, not a men's penitentiary, could some prisoners have been female, even though the dance number featured all male performers?

As to whether Elvis knew what he was singing, look up his reaction when told a man was attracted to him. It was just short of homicidal rather than homosexual.

It was a light-hearted song about a rock n roll dance at the jail; it’s not meant to be taken so literally or seriously. Even in the film, the song & video was created for the television show to promote something.

In the mid-1950s, homosexuality wasn’t a thing. So the writers and censors at the time basically assumed that everyone would figure that the “cutest jailbird” line was spoken from a man to a woman. The movie and song didn’t drive that point, that it was from a man to a women, because (again) the prevailing views of the 1950s made that unnecessary. I doubt anyone at the time even got the suggestion of homoeroticism from the song; that discussion came decades later.